418 JReviews — A, Milne-Edwards on Fossil Birds. 



entirely sbown. The tibia is a long hollow bone, of 0*026 centim. 

 in length. 



There is no trace of the peronsens. The tarsus is composed of at 

 least three bulbiform bones, and of a bone which has a resemblance 

 to the astragalus. 



The feet are quite visible and perfect, with the exception of part 

 of the right foot ; they are both in the same position. The meta- 

 tarsal bones differ in length ; the first is 0-008 milL ; the second 

 0-007 mill. ; the third 0-005 mill. ; and the fourth 0-0035 mill. 

 The thickness is about the same in all. The first toe shows two 

 phalanges ; the second, third, and fourth seem each to have three. 

 On the outside of the left foot, and more confusedly also on that of 

 the right, there is a small organ composed of two short strong 

 phalanges, which the author says cannot be a fifth toe-bone, because 

 it does not possess any metatarsal. Hermann von Meyer calls it 

 the " Stiimmel " (or stump). 



From the preceding description, it appears that in comparing this 

 specimen with the species of Fterodactylus most nearly related to it 

 — 'Viz. Ft. hrevirostris, Pt. Meyeri, Ft. Koclii, Ft. spectabilis, and Ft. 

 micronyx — we find that Ft. hrevirostris is distinguished from our 

 specimen by its shortness, by the smallness of the cervical vertebrse, 

 the number and dimensions of the phalanges of the feet, and the 

 relative length of the metacarpal bones. Ft. Meyeri differs by the 

 length of its fore-arm, which is greater than that of its metacarpus, 

 and we have seen that in the Teyler specimen these two were equal. 

 Ft. Koclii presents the same objection as Ft. Meyeri. Ft. spectabilis 

 shows a longer head, a shorter metacarpus ; the long finger is 

 also shorter and thinner, the metacarpus is very different in respect 

 to the relative length of its bones as compared with this specimen. 

 Ft. micronyx (Meyer), on the contrary, agrees so closely with it, 

 that Dr. Winkler refers it without hesitation to that species. He 

 also considers that the small size of his specimen indicates that it 

 was not adult, and it is probable that it, like Ft. hrevirostris and 

 some others, was only the young state of some other species. 



laZB^V^IS^WS. 



Eeseakchbs on Fossil Birbs.^ By M. Alph. Milne Edwakds. 



fT^^HE great work on fossil birds by M. Alph. Milne Edwards is 

 JL just completed, and in a short paper read to the Academy of 

 Sciences, the author has given the general results to which he has 

 been led by these researches, carried on for twelve years, during 

 which period about twenty thousand bones of birds have been 

 arranged from different strata, yielding nearly 130 new species, 

 besides establishing the characters of the different faunas, from the 

 Cretaceous epoch to the present time. 



The new facts recorded have to some extent confirmed the results 

 to which the study of the fossil Mammalia and Eeptiles has led, and 



1 Abstracted from the Ann. des Sciences Naturelles, 1871, Ser. 5, Zoologie, torn. xvi. 



