174 BY-WA YS AND BIRD-NOTES. 



and we shall begin to wonder how so many re- 

 mains of so-called aquatic birds found their 

 way into the middle cretaceous beds of Kansas 

 and Texas. Surely there must have been 

 myriads of birds in those days, else nature had 

 a better way then than now of taking her 

 dead into her bosom ? 



The lower tertiary rocks of Wyoming Terri- 

 tory have given up an ancient woodpecker, 

 Uintornis lucaris, a small species, not larger 

 than our flicker. He it was who drummed on 

 the dead trees in the lonely places of the woods 

 ages before the first germ that foreshadowed 

 man was forming under the smile of God. 



Many of the ancient aquatic birds may have 

 built their nests in burrows, as our kingfishers 

 do, and various accidents may have shut them 

 up forever in their dens. It can be under- 

 stood how the belted halcyon of to-day might 

 be hermetically sealed in his burrow by the 

 earth falling in upon him. Still I have heard 

 of but a single bone- fragment (amongst all the 

 fossil remains of birds) that has been referred 

 to the kingfisher, which argues that Halcyon 

 is a new bird in comparison with others exist- 

 ing at this time, or else we have not yet 

 chanced to cut into the banks of the old, old 

 brooks where he used to dig out the burrow 

 for -his nest. 



What have been called sub-fossil remains 

 furnish us a number of giant birds from the 

 sands of Madagascar and from New Zealand. 

 So also the peat-bogs and fens hold the bones 

 of rare or extinct species, principally herons 

 and bitterns. 



Since we have been forced to study orni- 

 thology backwards, we may be said to have 



