Extinct Forms 3 



Truly wonderful little travellers, if only their migration to 

 Heligoland is considered ; but we know that on the east 

 coast of England also, the Gold-crests arrive during the 

 autumn in vast numbers, travelling across the North Sea to 

 our shores. Thus in every sense this little species may be 

 considered a wonderful bird, and there are numbers of 

 species just as wonderful in their flight and in their general 

 economy. 



In talking of extraordinary birds, however, our minds 

 naturally revert to the past, and we are tempted to inquire 

 as to the origin of bird-life on the earth, and as to the 

 aspect of the forerunners of the present race of birds 

 which we see around us to-day. In no Class of animals is 

 the record so imperfect. Fossil mammals and reptiles 

 have been discovered in the beds of bygone ages, which 

 help greatly to the understanding of the present forms of 

 these animals on the earth, as evolved from those of past 

 times, but with birds the case is different. Probably on 

 account of their lighter bodies, which may have been swept 

 away by rivers or torrents, the fossil remains of birds are 

 few, and we know very little of the species which inhabited 

 the globe in ancient times. The fossil birds as yet dis- 

 covered help us but little, for we find that where extinct 

 Penguins, Tinamous, etc., have been discovered, it has been 

 in the countries where both these groups flourish at the 

 present day. The same may be said of the flightless 

 Emeus and Rheas, though we have evidence in the case of 

 the Ostrich that its range was once more widely extended 

 than it is in our own era. The discovery of a large extinct 

 species of Coot (Fulica) in the Chatham Islands, which 

 finds its nearest ally in an extinct form in Mauritius, 

 associated as it is with other fossil forms of flightless Rails 

 {Rallidce) and other birds, suggests to us the possibility of 

 a former land connection between portions of the earth at 

 present far distant and separated by seas of great depth. 



