The Zoologist — March, 1873. 3451 



covered before long by the voyagers of some nation or the other ; but an 

 Enghshman may be pardoned for thinking that his own countrymen, from 

 their experience of the Arctic Regions, might achieve the task with less risk 

 than other people, and that to his own countrymen should belong the glory 

 of the achievement. — Alfred Newton. 



New Fossil Birds witli Teetli in both Jaws. — Prof. Marsh has drawn 

 attention to a new sub-class of fossil birds from the cretaceous shales of 

 Kansas. The specimens, while possessing the scapular arch, wing, and 

 leg-bones of the truly ornithic type, present the very aberrant conditions 

 of having biconcave vertebrae and well-developed teeth in both jaws. These 

 teeth are quite numerous and implanted in distinct sockets ; the twenty in 

 each ramus of the lower jaw are inclined backwards and resemble one 

 another. The maxillary teeth are equally numerous and like those in the 

 mandible. The sternum has a carina and elongated articulations for the 

 coracoids. The lower of the posterior extremities resemble those of 

 swimming birds. The last sacral vertebra is large, so it may have carried 

 a tail. Professor Marsh proposes the name Odontornithes for the name of 

 the new sub-class, and Ichthyonithes for the order to contain this remarkable 

 species, which is about the size of a pigeon. — ' Nature,' Feb. 20, 1873. 



Notes from North Lancashire. — More snipes appeared at St. Michael's- 

 on-Wyre, North Lancashire, this last season than have been known for 

 many years on the Sowerby meadows ; they arrived literally in hundreds as 

 early as the third week in July (but very few remaining to breed of late 

 years in the neighbourhood). When the water was so high as to drive 

 them off the meadows, they were always to be found in some damp turnip 

 and potato fields about a mile and a half from Sowerby. Except a few 

 stragglers, they took their departure about the end of October. During 

 their stay, however, we shot about two hundred and sixty, nearly every one 

 of which we carefully weighed : four ounces was the average weight, a few 

 turning the scale at four ounces and a quarter, and others being somewhat 

 under the four ounces. The four heaviest were — one on September 26th, 

 four ounces and three-quarters; October 12th, four ounces and a half; and 

 two on October 25th, respectively weighing four ounces and three-quarters 

 and five ounces. The first jack snipe was seen on September 21st. The 

 first woodcock was killed on October 2yth, and weighed sixteen ounces ; 

 two more were killed in December weighing eleven ounces each. Three 

 specimens of the spotted crake (Crex porzana) were killed on the Sowerby 

 meadows, and others were seen, but we did not molest them, hoping they 

 might remain to breed. The first was killed on September 17th, the last 

 seen about December 9th. One of those killed weighed four ounces and 

 three-quarters, another barely four ounces, and the third was not weighed. 

 Landrails, which were till 1871 very abundant about us, have since then 

 been very scarce, and we have therefore spared every one we have seen. 



