from Middle Eocene, Wyoming. 57 



but appear to be transitional between true gallinaceous birds 

 and the group typified by coots, rails, and gallinules. With 

 the last - named tlie present skeleton exhibits a number of 

 features in common, and there is also some resemblance to 

 curassows. An annectant type or a genei"alized organization is 

 exactly what we should expect to find, considering the antiquity of 

 the remains. For palfsontological purposes, the limits of modern 

 bird-divisions must be considerably extended, and this becomes the 

 more imperative the further we recede in geologic history. Hence, 

 in the present instance, we shall not be very far wrong in assigning 

 to the new form a position intermediate between the orders 

 Paludicolas and Gallina?, as these are commonly understood. ' 



From the late Tertiary of America a number of representatives of 

 the two last-named orders have been described by Cope,^ Marsh,^ 

 and Shufeldt,^ but so far as the writer is aware but one genus, and 

 that a crane {Alefornis, Marsh), is known from the Eocene. The 

 fragments described by Marsh as Telmatornis jyi'iscus and T. afflnis 

 from the Cretaceous marls of New Jersey are referred by him to the 

 Rallidee. Rallus itself and typical Gallinre are first met with in the 

 Upper Eocene of Europe. 



Lepidosteus atvox, Leidy. 



Only one of the eight ' species ' of Lepidosteids described by 

 Leidy, Cope, and Marsh, from the American Tertiary, is founded 

 lipon anything like a complete fish. This is Lepidosteus cuneatus 

 (Cope), a small form about 30 cm. in length, from the Miocene of 

 Central Utah. The remainder are established upon detached scales, 

 jaw-fragments, and vertebrse, many of them too imperfect for generic 

 determination. Our knowledge of European Lepidosteids is likewise 

 confined to the same class of fragments. The fact is, fossil gars are 

 very rare, and are known only from Eocene and Lower Miocene 

 horizons. 



Cope* observed that in French examples the maxillary is much 

 less segmented than in recent gars ; also that two of the American 

 species (L. atrox, Leidy, and L. glaher, Marsh) have the " mandibular 

 ramus without or with reduced fissure of the dental foramen, and 

 without the groove continuous with it in Lepidosteus.'''' Upon such 

 slight difi'erences he erected the new genus Glastes, to which all the 

 American species are commonly referred. The complete specimen 

 obtained this summer from Fossil, Wyoming, proves that a generic 

 separation from Lepidosteus is impossible ; the name Glastes there- 

 fore becomes a synonym, and it is further probable that the so-called 

 Glastes anax of Cope is identical with Leidy's L. atrox. 



The new specimen is beautifully preserved as a whole, the only 

 serious defect being that the cranial bones are more or less crushed. 



1 Bull. U.S. Geol. Surv. Terr., vol. iv (1878), No. 2. 



2 Amer. Journ. Sci. [3], vol. ii (1871), p. 126; ibid., vol. iv (1872), pp. 256-8; 

 Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Thilad., 1870, p. 11. 



3 Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Pliilad., vol. ix (1892), pp. 411-416. 



* " Tertiary Vertebrata," bk. i, p. 53 (Kept. U.S. Geol. Surv. Terr., vol. iii, 

 1884). 



