CONNECTING LINKS IN CLASSIFICATION. 3 



Traces had been discovered in the Mesozoic formations of certain 

 Ornitholites, which were too imperfect to determine the affinities 

 of the bird. But the calcareous mud of the ancient sea-bottom, 

 which has hardened into the famous lithographic slate of Solen- 

 hofen, revealed to Hermann von Meyer, in 1861, first the impression 

 of a feather, and, in the same year, the independent discovery 

 of the skeleton of the bird itself, which Yon Meyer had named 

 Archteopteryx lithographicus. This relic of a far-distant age now 

 adorns the British Museum. 



The skull of the Archeeopteryx is almost lost, but the leg, the foot, 



\ 



Fig. 1. Archseopteryx lithographicus. 



the pelvis, the shoulder- girdle, and the feathers, as far as their struc- 

 ture can be made out, are completely those of existing birds. On 

 the other hand, the tail is very long. Two digits of the manus 

 have curved claws, and, to all appearance, the metacarpal bones are 

 quite free and disunited, exhibiting, according to Professor Huxley, 

 closer approximation to the reptilian structure than any existing 

 bird. Mr. Evans has even detected that the mandibles were pro- 

 vided with a few slender teeth. 



On the other hand, the same writer points out certain peculiari- 

 ties in the single reptile found also among the Solenhofen slates, 

 which has been described and named Compsognathus longipes by the 



B2 



