Association of American Geologists and Naturalists. 113 



Prof. Hitchcock then read his " Report on Ichnolithology or 

 Fossil Footmarks, with a description of the CoproUtes of Birds, 

 discovered recently in the Connecticut Valley," &c. 



Ichnolithology is the science of footmarks in stone, and is a quite re- 

 cent branch of Paleontology. The object of this paper was to give its 

 history, and to add some new facts respecting the footmarks of this 

 country. 



Dr. Duncan gave the first trustworthy description of fossil footsteps in 

 the sandstone of Scotland in 1828. They were those of tortoise. In 

 1831, Mr. Scrope described some tracks of crustaceans in the forest 

 marble of England. In 1834 the tracks of an animal called the Chiro- 

 therium were found in Saxony, which Mr. Owen now refers to the Laby- 

 rinthodon, or a frog as large at least as an ox. In 1835 the tracks of 

 birds were described from the Connecticut valley. With the four new 

 species added by the author in this report, no less than thirty-four spe- 

 cies have now been discovered in that valley, some of them sixteen 

 inches long, or four times longer than the foot of the ostrich. In regard 

 to the first discovery of these tracks, it was stated that the first was 

 found in 1802, by Mr. Moody, and Dr. Dwight of South Hadley, and 

 by them regarded as the tracks of birds, but no account of them was 

 published. In 1835, Dr. Deane, of Greenfield, called Prof. H.'s atten- 

 tion to tracks of this kind, discovered in another locality. After care- 

 fully investigating the facts, the latter published, in 1836, an account of 

 seven species, and five years afterwards of twenty seven species, in his 

 final report on the Geology of Massachusetts. Up to that time the au- 

 thor maintained that he had prosecuted this subject alone, and that no 

 other person had investigated it scientifically, and therefore he had a 

 right to be regarded as the real discoverer of bird-tracks in stone, al- 

 though others first /oMnS them. He thought that on this point injustice 

 had been done him in the journals of this country and of Europe, by 

 representing others as having preceded him in the discovery and explo- 

 ration of these tracks, although he believed that such injustice was 

 wholly unintentional on the part of those who had done it. 



The author proceeded to describe other examples of fossil footmarks 

 more recently, such as those of Chirotheria, tortoises and reptiles, at 

 three localities in England, among which were some like those of birds ; 

 of two singular tracks in Germany; of those of fish, moUusca, and 

 worms in England ; of bird-tracks in New Jersey, of reptiles in Nova 

 Scotia, and of supposed tracks on the slates of Hudson river. 



He announced also that he had within a few months discovered the 

 coprolites, or petrified excrements of birds, in the sandstone of the Con- 

 necticut valley. He submitted specimens to Dr. Samuel L. Dana, of 



Vol. xLvii, No. 1.— April-June, 1844. 15 



