LlTHORNrS VULTUIUNUS. 549 



A VES. VULTURJDJE. f 



Fiy. 232. 



Sternum, &c. of Lithornis, eocene clay, Sheppey. Nat. size. 



LITHORNIS VULTURINUS. The Vulture-like 

 Lithornis. 



Lithornis* vulturinus, OWEN, Geological Transactions, Second series, vol. vi. 



p. 206, pi. xxi. figs. 5 and 6. 



Catalogue of Fossil Mammalia, and Birds, Mu- 



seum of the College of Surgeons, 4to, 1845, p. 337. 



THE most conclusive evidence of the existence of Birds 

 at the period of the formation of the English eocene ter- 

 tiary strata, is afforded by the two remarkable ornitho- 

 lites first described in the above-cited volume of the 

 ' Transactions of the Geological Society of London,' these 

 fossils, including the sternum and the sacrum, two of the 

 most characteristic parts of skeleton of a bird, both 

 also having been obtained from the London clay at Shep- 

 pey. The first of these fossils (fig. 232) forms part of the 

 extensive series of organic remains, which John Hunter had 



* X<V5, stone, o'gv/?, bird. 



