34 EVOLUTION 



One of the most treasured fossils in the 

 world of which the British Museum and the 

 Berlin Museum have each one of the two 

 known specimens is the oldest known bird, 

 Archseopteryx. These priceless skeletons were 

 found well preserved in the lithographic stone 

 of Bavaria, and the grain of the stone 

 a hardened mud is so fine that the impres- 

 sions of the feathers are well seen, and most 

 of the bones are clear. Archaeopteryx was a 

 creature about the size of a crow, probably 

 arboreal, and beyond all doubt a bird the 

 earliest bird we know of. But what gives it 

 a peculiar interest is that while it is not far 

 from a typical bird in its skull, its merry- 

 thought, and its legs, it is in some other 

 respects markedly reptile-like. It has, for 

 instance, teeth in both jaws, a long tail like 

 a lizard's, and a strange wing, well-developed 

 yet unfinished, with its three digits ending in 

 unmistakable claws. 



Now Archaeopteryx was very far from being 

 a beginner on the bird line of evolution; its 

 wings and its legs prove that. It is also 

 possible that it was an offshoot from the 

 direct line, and thus not ancestral to any 

 bird now living. Still, we cannot but regard 

 it as "a connecting link " in the sense that 

 it shows in its structure a combination of 



