Mevieics — R. Lydekker's Catalogiie of Fossil Birds. 379 



attaining a knowledge of the ancestry of Fossil Birds was destined 

 never to be gratified. But in 1861 a split slab of Lithographic 

 Limestone was discovered at Eichstadt near Solenhofen, in Bavaria, 

 in the Lower Kimeridgian formation, showing a nearly entire 

 skeleton and impressions of the feathers of what was at first supposed 

 to be a Keptile, but afterwards proved to be a remarkable long-tailed 

 Bird, with twenty slender caudal vertebrae, each joint having a pair 

 of feathers, one feather on each side. Twenty years later, a second 

 specimen was discovered, identical with that described by Prof. 

 Owen in 1862, but in some respects more complete, from which we 

 learn that the jaws were armed with from ten to twelve teeth in the 

 pre-maxillary border on each side, and three or more teeth in the 

 lower jaw also ; the teeth were conical and apparently planted in 

 distinct alveoli. The three metacarpals and the phalanges of the 

 fingers were free and were armed with strong recurved claws like 

 those of a Lizard's fore-limb. This singular creature is at present 

 the earliest, as it is also the most generalized bird with which we 

 are acquainted ; the sternum was well developed, and probably 

 provided with a carina : indeed, from the characters of both the fore- 

 and hind-limbs, we are justified in concluding that Ai-chcsopteryx wsis 

 a perching, flying, Carinate type of Bird ; it is the only representative 

 of a distinct order, the Saurorje. 



After another interval of ten years, two other types of toothed 

 Birds were discovered by Professor Marsh in North America : one, 

 the IcJithyornis, being a bird of powerful flight, with biconcave 

 vertebrae ; the other, Hesperornis, had a perfectly flat sternum, and 

 •was a large flightless aquatic Bird, probably resembling the Loons 

 and Grebes in structure. These American birds, however, are from 

 the Upper Cretaceous of Kansas, and, although of Secondary age, are 

 much younger, and more specialized types than the Archceopteryx, 

 which is of Upper Jurassic age. 



Previous to these discoveries it had been supposed that the great 

 group of running Birds, such as the Ostrich, Rhea, Emu, Cassowary, 

 and Apteryx, represented the earliest types known ; and seeing 

 also that these Katite, or raft-breasted flightless birds, have been 

 found in a fossil state in England, France, India, Madagascar, New 

 Zealand, Australia, and America, it was only natural to connect 

 them with the still earlier discovery of Bird-like, bipedal impressions 

 met with so abundantly upon the slabs of Triassic sandstone in the 

 Connecticut Valley. These are now, however, commonly attributed 

 to the hi;ge Dinosaurian reptiles, whose remains have of late years 

 been met with, both in N. America and in Europe, many of which 

 evidently progressed upon their hind-legs only, and, having the same 

 number of toe-bones as a bird, might have left similar foot-prints. 



Of the other early remains of Birds known in a fossil state, b}'' far 

 the greater part are in an extremely fragmentary condition. Thus 

 the Enaliornis Barretti, from the Cambridge Greensand, is founded 

 upon an isolated fragmentary bone, the tarso-metatarsus. The 

 Odontopteryx toliapica is founded on an imperfect skull from the 

 London Clay of Sheppey, was considerably larger than that of 



