98 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



made by wiry feathers or coarse bristles ; these 

 last appear to have sunk into the ground nearly an 

 inch. The toes had penetrated much deeper, and 

 the mud or sand appeared to have been raised into 

 a ridge rising several inches around their impres- 

 sions, reminding the observer of the elevation 

 round the track of an elephant over moist clay. 

 Intervals of six feet were noted as the length of 

 the stride of the impressor of this ornithichnite. 

 The bones of fishes only (Palaothrissum) had been 

 discovered in this impressed rock. 



If Professor Hitchcock be right in his conclusion 

 that these enormous foot-prints are the vestiges of 

 feathered giants, there can be no doubt that they 

 justify the remark that they are of the highest 

 interest to the palaeontologist, as they establish the 

 new fact of the existence of birds at the early epoch 

 of the new red sandstone formation ; and further 

 show that some of the most ancient forms of that 

 class attained a size far exceeding that of the largest 

 among the feathered inhabitants of the present 

 world. 



The discovery of the bones of the gigantic 

 Dinornis, (Owen,) have proved beyond all question 

 the last conclusion ; but the student will do well, 

 before he accepts the former, to investigate 

 thoroughly Professor Owen's papers on Labyrin- 

 thodon,* remembering that the toes of Dr. Hitch- 

 cock's giant were broad and thick. The footmarks 

 of that gigantic batrachian (Salamandro'ides, Jager 

 Mastodonsaurus and Phytosaurus, of the same 

 Chirotherium, Kaup) were impressed on a shore ; 

 and in some of the specimens of that petrified 

 strand were the impressions of drops of rain that 

 had fallen upon the strata while in the process of 

 formation. On the surface of one at Storeton, 

 where the impressions of the footmarks were large, 

 the depths of the holes made by the rain-drops on 

 different parts of the same footstep, varied with 

 the unequal pressure on the clay and sand, accord- 

 ing to the salient cushions and retiring hollows 

 of the animal's foot. The constancy of these 

 appearances upon an entire series of foot-prints, 

 in a long and continued track, showed that the 

 rain had fallen after the creature had passed. 



The equable size of the casts of large drops that 

 cover the entire surface of the slab, (says Dr. 

 Buckland, in his address to the Geological Society 

 of London on this phenomenon,) except in the 

 parts impressed by the cushions of the feet, record 

 the falling of a shower of heavy drops on the day 

 in which this huge animal had marched along the 

 ancient strand ; hemispherical impressions of small 

 drops upon another stratum show it to have been 

 exposed to only a sprinkling of gentle rain that fell 

 at a moment of calm. In one small slab of new red 

 sandstone, found by Dr. Ward near Shrewsbury, 

 [where the remains which will presently be alluded 

 to were found,] we have a combination of proofs as 

 to metoric, hydrostatic, and locomotive phenomena, 

 which occurred at a time incalculably remote, in 

 the atmosphere, the water, and the quarter towards 

 which the animals were passing ; the latter is in- 

 dicated by the direction of the footsteps which 



* Geol. Trans. Second Series. 



form their tracks ; the size and curvatures of the 

 ripple-marks on the sand, now converted to sand- 

 stone, show the depth and direction of the current ; 

 the oblique impressions of the rain-drope register 

 the point from which the wind was blowing at or 

 about the time when the animals were passing. 



But how was this record so firmly imprinted on 

 the stone? The answer is ready from the same 

 eloquent and accurate oracle : 



The clay impressed with these prints of rain- 

 drops acted as a mould, which transferred the form 

 of every drop to the lower surface of the next bed 

 of sand deposited upon it, so that entire surfaces of 

 several strata in the same quarry are respectively 

 covered with moulds and casts of drops of rain that 

 fell whilst the strata were in process of forma- 

 tion.* 



No, you are not about to be dragged into a 

 treatise on ichnology, friendly reader ; though, 

 believe me, you will find the subject, pregnant as 

 it is with evidences of uncouth extinct forms that 

 have passed away from life forever, wending their 

 way over the shores of a half-formed world, amid 

 wind and rain, storm and sunshine, as marvellous, 

 ay, and as entertaining too, as a fairy tale. You 

 are only to be led to the contemplation of the 

 ichnolites from the Shrewsbury sandstone, as a fit 

 introduction to the crocodiles, which will next 

 claim your attention. 



Professor Hitchcock, as we have seen, undoubt- 

 edly claims his ichnolites as due to the presence 

 of birds on the spot where they were impressed ; 

 but, as Professor Owen well observes, any evidence 

 of a warm-blooded and quick-breathing class of 

 animals at so remote a period as the new red 

 sandstone epoch, requires to be very closely sifted ; 

 and, accordingly, the chance of obtaining any 

 analogical facts, bearing upon Professor Hitch- 

 cock's ornithichnites, induced our professor to 

 spare no exertions to obtain further insight into 

 the problematical creature of the Grinsill quar- 

 ries. 



Dr. Ward kept a sharp eye upon the quarrying 

 operations ; and soon, in addition to the footsteps, 

 fossils were, from time to time, found, secured, 

 and liberally sent up to the professor, who was 

 thus enabled to form a clear opinion of the animal 

 that had impressed the sands with its feet. The 

 result was, the professor's Description of an Ex 

 tinct Lacertian Reptile, Rhynchosaurus articeps, 

 (Owen,) of which the bones and foot-prints charac- 

 terize the Upper New Red Sandstone at Grinsill 

 near Shrewsbury, published in the seventh volume 

 of The Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical 

 Society. For the highly interesting details of 

 this masterly paper we must refer the reader to the 

 . memoir itself, which will well repay an attentive 

 perusal ; suffice it to say, that this rhynchosaur 

 turned out to be neither crocodilian, batrachian, 

 nor chelonian, though, in a degree, allied to each 

 of those tribes, and that the fortunate preservation 



* Address delivered lo the Geological Society of London 

 on the 2lst February, 1840, by the Rev. W. Buckland, 

 D. D., President. 



