Nov. 11, 18S1.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



33 



Conlinuedfrom porje 3il,J 



The shoulder-hladtts and the l)ones of the wings and legs 

 were all of the true hird-like type. The breast-bone had a 

 prominent keel. The wings were large in proportion to 

 the legs. The wing-bones corresponding to the hand in 

 man, were united as in ordinary birds. The bones of the 

 hinder extremities resembled those in swimming birds. 

 The bird was aliout as large as a pigeon. The species was 

 carnivorous, and probably aquatic. Professor Marsh called 

 the other form discovered by him Apatornis celer. 



Later, Professor Marsh announced that having re- 

 examined another fossil bird — a large diving bird nearly 

 six feet high, found in the same cretaceous formation as 

 the Ichthyornis, he found that it also had tectli in both 

 jaws, not in sockets, like the Ichthyornis, but in (jrooves, as 

 in Ichthyosaurus, the great lizard-formed marine reptile. 



The skeleton of this toothed bird is pictured in our 

 illustration. Prof. Marsh called it the Ilesperornis Regalis. 

 Before the discovery of teeth, Prof. Marsh had un- 

 hesitatingly classed the Hesperornis as a gigantic diver, 

 though recognising peculiarities of structure. But recently, 

 in a Monogi-aph on the Extinct Toothed Birds of North 

 America, he called attention to its resemblance in certain 

 respects to the Ostrich. He says that if these characters 

 are to be " regarded as e\-idence of real affinity, the Iles- 

 perornis would be essentially a gigantic swimming ostricL" 

 Professor Huxley, on the other hand, says that the bird is 

 " in a great many respects astonishingly like an existing 

 diver or grebe — so like it, indeed, that had this skeleton 

 been found in a museum, I suppose — if the head had not 

 been known — it would have been placed in the same 



general group as the divers and grebes of the present 

 day." 



The teeth seem to have been admirably adapted to aid a 

 diving bird (like a grebe) in catching its slippery prey. Tu 

 the Odontopteryx toliapicus of Owen, the bony denticles 

 were inclined at a considerable angle, but with the points 

 forward, yet Professor Owen concluded that even such pro- 

 jections (they could not pi'operly be called teeth) must 

 have greatly assisted the bird in holding captured fish. In 

 the existing bird, the Meryanser serraior, the tooth-like 

 serrations are inclined with the points backwards. These 

 serrations, however, were not teeth, but merely tooth-like 

 extensions of the horny covering of the beak. The teeth 

 of the Ichthyornis and Hesperoriiis, as is shown by the 

 smaller figure (showing a tooth, and, within it, a tooth 

 forming to take its place) were unmistakably teeth. It 

 does not take away from their dental character that they 

 were set in a groove in Ilesperornis and Archtropleryx, 

 instead of in separate sockets, as in higher-toothed races 

 and in Ichthyornis. 



It should be added that Professor Marsh has examined 

 the specimen of Arc/iceopteryx in the British Museum, and 

 fully satisfied himself that it belongs to the class of toothed 

 birds. " The teeth seen on the same slab with this speci- 

 men agree so closely with the teeth of Hesperornis, that" he 

 " identified them at once as those of birds, and not fishes." 



He describes the leading characters of the ancestral bird 

 in the following terms : — " In the generalised form to 

 which we must look for the ancestral type of the class of 

 birds, we should expect to find the following characters : 

 Teeth in grooves ; vertebra; biconcave " (that is, the bones 

 of the backbone shaped somewhat as we see them in fish) ; 

 " breastbone without a keel ; tail longer than the body ; 

 bones of the hand and wrist, as also those of the foot, free ; 

 the bones of the pelvis separate ; the sacrum " (or hind bone 

 of the pelvis) " formed of two vertebra; ; four or more toes 

 directed forward ; feathers rudimentary or imperfect." 



If we consider the circumstances under which, according 

 to the theory of evolution, the race of birds came into 

 existence, we can understand that the ancestral creatures 

 whence birds are descended presented many features in 

 which they were not only unlike the birds of our time, but 

 unlike any other race of existing animals. Were they not 

 also, in all probability, very unlike each other? Probably 

 there were much wider difierences among the various 

 orders of animals, which included all the ancestry of the 

 modern bird, at the time when first any of the charac- 

 teristics now regarded as a-i-ian first existed, than there are 

 now among all the orders of existing birds. This certainly 

 appears from the evidence obtained, not only respecting 

 toothed birds, but also respecting those bird-like animals 

 of which Huxley and others have shown that they were 

 closely akin to reptiles — were, in fact, biped reptiles. 

 \Ve believe that the same holds with every species 

 now existing, even with man — that, for instance, if we 

 could have brought before us in rapid review all those 

 creatures from which the human race of our time has de- 

 scended (taking only tho.se which belonged to one particular 

 epoch, before man, specialised as we now find him, existed), 

 we should not oidy find a far wider range of difference 

 among these creatures than among the human races of the 

 present day, but a wider range of difference than even 

 exists between men and apes. There are tt priori reasons 

 for this view as regards the human race ; but, apart from 

 these, the evidence collected by Mivart in his work, " Men 

 and Apes," while not, we think, available to show that 

 there is no kinship between the Simian and Human races, 

 seems only explicable on the assumption that the Simian 

 ancestors of man differed widely inter se. 



