56 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



such was the case, for it is extremely improbable that 

 such perfect and important feathers as those of the 

 wings and tail should alone have been developed, while 

 there are many reasons why the feathers of the body 

 might have been lost before the bird was covered by 

 mud, or why their impressions do not show. 



It was a considerable time after the finding of the first 

 specimen that the presence of teeth in the jaws was 

 discovered, partly because the British Museum speci- 

 men was imperfect, 1 and partly because no one sus- 

 pected that birds had ever possessed teeth, and so no 

 one ever looked for them. When, in 1877, a more com- 

 plete example was found, the existence of teeth was un- 

 mistakably shown; but in the meantime, in February, 

 1873, Professor Marsh had announced the presence of 

 teeth in Hesperornis, and so to him belongs the credit 

 of being the discoverer of birds with teeth. 



The next birds that we know are from our own 

 country, and although separated by an interval of 

 thousands of years from the Jurassic Archa?opteryx, 

 time enough for the members of one group to have quite 

 lost their wings, they still retain teeth, and in this 

 respect the most bird-like of them is quite unlike any 

 modern bird. These come from the chalk beds of west- 

 ern Kansas, and the first specimens were obtained by 

 Professor Marsh in his expeditions of 1870 and 1871, 

 but not until a few years later, after the material had 

 been cleaned and was being studied, was it ascertained 

 that these birds were armed with teeth. The smaller of 

 these birds, which was apparently not unlike a small gull 

 in general appearance, was, saving its teeth, so thor- 

 oughly a bird that it may be passed by without 



J The skull was lacking, and a part of the upper jaw lying to one side 

 was thought to belong to a fish. 



