242 
In subterranean Ornithology three important discoveries have been 
made during the past year; the first in the Eocene formation by 
Professor Owen, who has recognised the fossil Vulture before alluded 
to in the London clay of Sheppy ; the second, by Lord Cole and 
Sir P. Egerton, who have acquired from the chalk of Kent the hu- 
merus of a bird most like that of an Albatross, but of larger and 
longer dimensions; the third by Professor Agassiz, who has found 
in Switzerland, a nearly entire skeleton of a small bird (not unlike 
a Swallow), at Glaris, in the indurated blue slate beds of the lower 
region of the chalk formation. We know that the bones of a Wader, 
larger than a Heron, have been found by Mr. Mantell in the Weal- 
den formation of Tilgate Forest ; and that the Ornithichnites in the 
New Red Sandstone of Connecticut have been referred to seven 
species of birds. 
We have an interesting accession to our knowledge of the ana- 
tomy of the Ichthyosaurus in Mr. Owen’s description of the hinder fin 
of an Ichthyosaurus communis, discovered at Barrow-on-Soar by 
Sir Philip Egerton; this fin distinctly exhibits on its posterior margin 
the remains of cartilaginous rays that bifurcate as they approach 
the edge of the fin, showing in this respect a new approximation to 
the fin of a fish, and more fully justifying the propriety of the name 
Ichthyosaurus. Traces are also preserved of scutiform compart- 
ments on the integument of the fin. It is singular that this struc- 
ture should never have been observed in any of the numerous spe- 
cimens from Dorset and Somerset that have come under our notice ; 
whilst at Barrow-on-Soar, from whence the paddle in question was 
derived, even the fibres of the skin and folds of the epidermis are 
sometimes accurately retained *. 
Mr. Owen’s first part of his report on fossil Saurians, read at the 
British Association at Birmingham in August last, forms the com- 
mencement of a most important addition to the history of extinct 
reptiles. His recent investigations in Odontography have also sup- 
plied to the geologist a new and most efficient instrument of investi- 
gation, enabling him to distinguish genera of extinct animals by the 
microscopic structure of their teeth ; and as, of all fossil remains, the 
teeth are the parts most perfectly preserved, and in the case of cartila- 
vinous fishes the teeth and spines are generally the only parts that 
* See Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise, Pl. 10. 
