304 



(Eningen, and the bone of one of the anscres in the calcareous schist of 

 Pappenheim; Manuel dHist. Nat. T. n. p. 408. Faujas St. Fond has 

 also presented us with two indubitable fossils of this class, being two fea- 

 thers from the quarries of Vestena Nova, imbedded in the same stone in 

 which the fishes are found. 



Fossil feathers are very rarely met with. A fine specimen of this kind 

 is figured by Scheuchzer, part of a feather being enclosed in a piece of 

 the fissile stone of CEningen. M. Walch also describes two specimens in 

 his possession. One of these is the barrel part of the quill, about the 

 size of a goose-quill, to which a part of the feather is adherent. The 

 other is a small feather, with its tubular part. 



A beak is described by Rome de Lisle, and figured in Davila's Cata- 

 logue, said to be from the neighbourhood of Reutlingen (Catalog, m. 

 No. 25.), which, in the opinion of M. Cuvier, is merely a bivaive shell, 

 fixed obliquely in the stone. In the same work, a fossil bone ot a bird is 

 mentioned ; but it is neither figured nor described ; being only spoken of 

 as being from Canstadt. This also, I conceive, should be admitted as an 

 ornitholite, with much hesitation : bones which I have received from 

 Canstadt, under the same description, are bones which are merely in- 

 crusted by a calcareous deposition. Scheuchzer speaks of the head of a 

 bird in a piece of the black schist of Eisleben, but at the same time ad- 

 mits of its near resemblance to a pink-blossom. 



The Abbe Fortis, than whom very few have had equal opportunities 

 of exercising an excellent judgment on the nature and characters of dif- 

 ferent fossils, is remarkably sceptical as to any fossils of this description. 

 This assiduous naturalist is not even satisfied with the specimens of fossil 

 feathers of Mount Bolca, which have been just spoken of as having been 

 figured by M. Faujas, Annales du Mus. 8fc. vi. p. 21, /;/. 1. 



Lamanon described, in 1782, the impression of a whole bird from 

 Montmartre; but, in its delineation, he allowed his fancy rather too free 

 scope, adding to it the feathers of the wings and tail. Fortis, on the 



