532 MANUAL OF ZOOLOGY; 



Africa and the Philippine Islands, and live upon Serpents and 

 other Reptiles. 



The last member of this section is the gigantic Condor 

 (Sarcorhampus gryphus}. This enormous bird has a stretch of 

 wing of over ten feet, and is usually seen soaring in majestic 

 circles at a great elevation in the air, rising, it is said, to a 

 height of over twenty thousand feet. It inhabits the lofty 

 mountain-ranges of the Andes, and lays its eggs at a height of 

 from ten to fifteen thousand feet. It differs from the Vultures 

 of the Old World chiefly in possessing a large fleshy protuber- 

 ance or caruncle above the base of the beak. 



ORDER VIII. SAURUR^E. This order includes only the 

 extinct bird, the Archczopteryx macrura (fig. 232), a single 

 specimen of which and that but a fragmentary one has been 

 discovered in the Lithographic Slates of Solenhofen (Upper 

 Oolites). This extraordinary bird appears to have been about 

 as big as a Rook ; but it differs from all known birds in having 

 two free claws belonging to the wing, and in having a long 

 lizard-like tail, longer than the body, and composed of separate 

 vertebrae. The tail was destitute of any ploughshare-bone, and 

 each vertebra carried a single pair of quills. The metacarpal 

 bones, also, were not anchylosed together as they are in all 

 other known birds, living or extinct. 



CHAPTER LXXI. 

 DISTRIBUTION OF A VES IN TIME. 



As regards the geological distribution of Birds, there are many 

 reasons why we should be cautious in reasoning upon merely 

 negative evidence, and more than ordinarily careful not to 

 infer the non-existence of birds during any particular geological 

 epoch, simply because we can find no positive evidence for 

 their presence. As Sir Charles Lyell has well remarked, " the 

 powers of flight possessed by most birds would ensure them 

 against perishing by numerous casualties to which quadrupeds 

 are exposed during floods;" and "if they chance to be drowned, 

 or to die when swimming on water, it will scarcely ever happen 

 that they will be submerged so as to become preserved in 

 sedimentary deposits/' since, from the lightness of the bones, 

 the carcass would remain long afloat, and would be liable to 

 be devoured by predaceous animals. As, with a few utterly 

 trivial exceptions, all the deposits in which fossils are found 



