BIRDS OF THE ROCKS. i6g 



head and of the sternum are not all present, 

 but the fragmentary wings lie in place, and one 

 leg with the foot attached is crooked back be- 

 side the long twenty-jointed tail. The feath- 

 ers are unmistakably those of a flying bird, 

 and the feet are formed for tree life. It must 

 have been a most remarkable figure in the air, 

 especially if its plumage was gay-colored, with 

 its long, wriggling caudal streamer floating 

 out behind, and its claw-tipped wings spread 

 on either side of its reptile-like body. One 

 may assume that its voice was a blending of 

 the tones of a toad and the notes of a crow — 

 the first rude elements of song. Almost un- 

 imaginable ages have passed since the last sur- 

 viving Archaopteryx was caught in a rock ma- 

 trix and forced to mould a cast for the delecta- 

 tion of poets and scientists. Indeed we must 

 refrain from attempting to span the gulf of 

 time between this lone relic and the next bird- 

 trace appearing in the earth's formations. No 

 more feathered vertebrate tails come to light. 

 Lapsing on towards the perfect form, the bird- 

 life, like that of certain reptiles, sloughed the 

 heavy caudal appendage and gathered closer 

 together the chief centres of its animal struct- 

 ure. From the cretaceous formation of the 

 rocks, forward to the most recent disclosures 

 of the caves and peat bogs, this change seems 

 to have gone hand in hand with a general re- 

 modelling of the whole sphere of mundane life. 

 For a vast period of time it appears that the 

 birds flourished, in monstrous development of 

 beak and teeth, the devouring demons of land 

 and sea. The eocene rocks furnish a wealth 

 of fragmentary fossils suggesting a variety of 

 bird-forms, mostly of giant size, waders and 



