NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 83 



footsteps having a resemblance to an impression of a 

 swelled human hand, has caused it to be named the 

 cheirotlierlum. The footsteps of the cheirotherium have 

 been found also in the Stouvton quarries above men- 

 tioned. Professor Owen, who stands at the head of 

 comparative anatomy in the pi-esent day, has expressed 

 his belief that this last animal was the same batrachian 

 of which he has found fragments in the new red sand- 

 stone of Warwickshire. At Kuncorn, near Manchester, 

 and elsewhere, have been discovered the tracks of an 

 animal which Mr. Owen calls the rhynchosaurus_, uniting 

 with the body of a reptile, the -beak and feet of a bird, 

 and which clearly had been a link between these two 

 classes. 



If geologists shall ultimately give their approbation to 

 the inferences made from a recent discovery in America, 

 we shall have the addition of perfect birds, though 

 probably of a low type, to the animal forms of this era. 

 It is stated to be in quarries of this rock, in the valley of 

 Connecticut, that footprints have been found, apparently 

 produced by birds of the order grail??, or waders. " The 

 footsteps appear in regular succession on the continuous 

 track of an animal, in the act of walking or running, with 

 the right and left foot always in their relative places. Pne 

 distance of the intervals between each footstep on the 

 same track is occasionally varied, but to no greater 

 amount than may be explained by the bird having 

 altered its pace. iNIany tracks of different individuals 

 and different species are often found crossing each other, 

 and crowded, like impressions of feet upon the shores 

 of a muddy stream, where ducks and geese resort."* 



^- Dr. Buckland, quoting an article by Professor Hitchcock, in the 

 American Journal of Science and Arts, 1836. 



