NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 99 



existed at particular times, which is in some measure 

 independent of the specialties of fossilology. The birds 

 are below the mammalia in the animal scale ; and 

 therefore they may be supposed to have existed about 

 the time of the new red sandstone and oolite, although 

 we find but slight traces of them in those formations, 

 and, it may be said, till a considerably later period. 



