52 E. Hitchcock on Fossil Footmarks of the Connecticut Valley. 
feet to the ground, that we suspect it could have been four — 
4 . 
foote 
4, Precisely how much correspondence there may be in the — 
anterior extremities of the two animals we cannot decide, The — 
Archzopteryx is thought to have-had but one metacarpal bone, — 
and the fingers are so scattered that their number is not given, — 
but two are described as slender with long claws. The most 
perfect track of the fore-foot of the Anomeepus has five toes, 
the two hindmost showing two phalanges, the third, four, the — 
fourth, three, and the farthest two. The four last toes at least 
show small claws. The fingers are arranged so as to be fan — 
shaped, all pointing more or less outward, resembling an ex 
panded wing. But they seem to be genuine fingers, and there — 
is no appearance of feathers on any of the 
tracks, on the hind or fore-feet. The figure 
2. 
annexed shows an outline of the most perfect 
track of the fore-foot yet found. 
This certainly looks more like the fore-foot | 
of a lizard, and still more like that of some 
- mammals, than the forearm of a bird, and it is 
difficult to conceive how it could have been 
used as an organ of flight, though possibly it O 
might. have been employed for prehension. 
But on the other hand we have conclusive 
evidence that it was not used for walking, ex- 
cept perhaps occasionally, and imperfectly. The right and left 
anterior feet that made the tracks were placed almost invariably | 
nearly abreast of each other, as if the animal were resting, a 
not in alternation as in walking. But of more than forty steps of 
Anomeepus intermedius, shown on the remarkable slab described 
in this paper, the fore-feet show themselves only twice, and th 
when the animal rested. Indeed, we may safely assume that 
the principal object of the fore-feet was not locomotion, and the © 
same remark is applicable to other species, even the gigantic — 
Otozoum. What other purpose in the economy of these animals — 
eould have been subserved by such a structure, except perhaps 
. snare 
prehension, 1 will not attempt to decide. Yet the fact has 
awakened an inquiry whether such a structure may not have — 
existed in an animal whose predominant characteristies were 
fore the discovery of the fossil at Solenhofen. But that animal 
had a tail six inches long with twenty vertebra, and yet the 
ogists i Sock The ch: a] 
haracters of “ 
markings on stone and the tail 
