Table-case 

 13. 



86 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS. 



Gallery No. 2.— FOSSIL BIEDS. 



Bemains of birds are very rare among fossils, except in 

 comparatively modern deposits on land; and even under 

 these circumstances they are usually quite fragmentary. 

 They occur most commonly in swamps, such as the English 

 Fenland ; in the bed of silted-up lakes ; and in caverns and 

 fissures. They are only found by rare accident in the 

 marine deposits of an earlier geological date. 



Class.— AVES. 

 Order I.— CARINATJE. 



The English Prehistoric and Pleistocene birds, so far as 

 known from the local deposits just mentioned, were essen- 

 tially similar to those which have lived in this country 

 during historic times. Of special interest, however, is the 

 discovery of remains of the pelican in the Fenland, and in 

 refuse heaps on the site of an ancient British village near 

 Glastonbury (see Table-case 13). It is also worthy of note 

 that the great auk or gare fowl (Aha irrvpennis), which became 

 extinct in 1844, has been found in deposits in the north of 

 England, Scotland, and Ireland ; and a complete skeleton of 

 this bird, discovered by Professor John Milne in a guano 

 deposit on Funk Island, off Newfoundland, is exhibited in a 

 special Case near the S.E. window. 



Among older remains of European flying birds exhibited 

 in Table-case 13, may be noted a leg-bone of an albatross 

 from the Bed Crag of Suffolk ; bones of fiainingo-like birds 

 (Palselodus, Phcenicopterus), a species of ibis, ducks, and 

 other birds from the Miocene of France; and various eggs 

 and feathers in Miocene freshwater limestones and lignite 

 from France and Germany. 



Still older is the unique collection of remains of Lower 

 Eocene birds from the London Clay exhibited in the same 

 Table-case. These fossils chiefly represent fish-eating sea- 

 birds, among which Odontopteryx and Prophaethon are 

 especially noteworthy. The skull of Odontopteryx (Fig. 83) 

 is remarkable for its strongly serrated jaws, the little pointed 



