154 FOSSIL BIRDS. 



Unluckily, however, the aid of imagination was summoned, in 

 the drawing of which we speak, and the picture is exceedingly 

 inilike the original. 



Fortis, who had conceived strong prejudices against the 

 existence of ornitholites, examined afresh the specimen which 

 Lamanon had described. He also gave a figure of it accord- 

 ing to his own notions. This is a striking example of how 

 differently the same object may appear, according to the no- 

 tions of the observers. In Fortis's figure the head is placed 

 below, all the inequalities of the stone are exaggerated, and 

 the osseous impressions weakened, and the author declares that 

 he can see nothing but a frog or a toad in the fragment in 

 question. 



The stone, however, turns out to be a genuine ornitholite. 

 Yet this point might still have remained doubtful, but for sub- 

 sequent discoveries of similar specimens better characterised. 



Peter Camper takes notice of one, but without describing it, 

 in an article on the fossil bones of Maestricht, inserted in the 

 ** Philosophical Transactions for 1786." This was a foot 

 found at Montmartre; a second specimen, also a foot, from 

 the same place, was described by the Baron as early as the year 

 1797. At the same time he learned that two other specimens 

 were in the hands of a person in Abbeville, who had received 

 them from Montmartre : these were the body of one bird, 

 and the leg of another. It was easy to observe that the leg 

 did not belong to the same individual as the body, for even the 

 stone which incrusted it was derived from a different stratum. 



Here, then, were four specimens of ornitholites, perfectly 

 well authenticated, as long back as the year 1800. Since that 

 period the Baron has continued his researches, and collected so 

 great a number, that no manner of doubt could remain that 

 the gypsum quarries contained the debris of birds in great 

 abundance. 



The feet are by far the most remarkable part in all the 

 ornitholites, even to the most inexperienced eye. The foot, in 



