“Ea 
William Davies—Fossil Bird-remains of India. 25 
foreshadow another paleontological species, to be perhaps hereafter 
determined, when other and more perfect portions of skeletons shall 
have been obtained; at present we can only refer it either to sexual 
disparity, or to great variation in individual growth. The intimate 
resemblance of the fossil and recent bird-bones is a character 
common to other classes of Siwalik vertebrate fossils, of which re- 
presentatives are still living in India, and has been a subject of 
comment by various writers. Dr. Falconer, remarking upon the 
abundance and variety of form of the reptilian remains, says, 
“ Leptorhynchus gangeticus and Emys tectum are indistinguishable 
from existing species,” and, “in several instances the fossil forms 
make the closest approach to species now living in India. This is 
also the case with several of the Carnivora.”’? 
The only reference to birds by the above eminent authority upon 
Siwalik fossils in the work above quoted is the following short para- 
graph :—‘‘ Among the Siwalik fossils there are also the remains of 
several species of Birds, including Gralle, greatly surpassing in size 
the gigantic crane of Bengal (Ciconia Argala)”—op. cit. p. 23. 
With regard to the proximal end ofa small tarso-metatarsal, which 
M. A. Milne-Edwards considered, though with doubt, and after hasty 
examination, to have belonged to a bird allied to the existing Tropic 
Bird (Phaeton phenicurus, Gmel.), but about one-third larger, Mr. 
Lydekker observes: ‘‘It seems incredible that a bird of that essentially 
oceanic genus could have lived in the land-locked Siwalik country. 
The difficulty may perhaps be got over by calling in question the 
authenticity of the locality of the bone, of which there seems no 
certain history.” This ready, though not scientific method of dis- 
posing of a paleontological difficulty, will, happily, in this instance 
not apply : the history and locality of the bone in question being well 
authenticated, as it forms part of the Cautley collection, and is 
moreover figured upon the oft-quoted unpublished plate R (figs. 13, 
13a, 6), upon which plate all the fossils figured are unques- 
tionably from the Siwaliks. The following quotation will also 
show that Milne-Edwards carefully avoided committing himself to 
any positive assertion as to the genus or the affinity of the fossil. 
He says: “Mais je ne propose cette détermination qu’avec une 
grande réserve, car je n’ai étudié ce fossile que trés-rapidement, et il 
serait necessaire de la soumettre 4 un examen comparatif approfondi.”* 
The fragment does not agree with Milne-Edwards’s figure of the 
tarso-metatarsal of Phaeton phenicurus (op. cit. pl. 82, figs. 6-10), 
nor yet with the recent bone of P. ethurus, preserved in the Museum 
of the College of Surgeons. Unfortunately, neither in the latter 
Museum nor in the National Collection is there a skeleton of the 
first-named species. On comparing the fossil with the proximal 
portion of the tarso-metatarsal of the Cormorant, Graculus (Phala- 
erocorax) carbo, I find that the form of the tibial condylar cavities, 
the intercondylar tuberosity, and the depth of the upper portion of 
the anterior channel dividing the outer and inner metatarsals, also 
1 Paleontological Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 28 and 26. 
2 Op. cit. tom. i. p. 250. 
