134 MEMOIRS OF THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM 
It has not been possible, however, to offer descriptions of both of these speci- 
mens in the following pages, owing to the fact that only one of them (fortunately 
the better preserved of the two) has not been sufficiently disengaged from the matrix 
to permit of its extended study. The specimen about to be described bears the 
Carnegie Museum catalogue number 2023, and belongs unquestionably to the genus 
Taoperdix, founded by Milne-Edwards' upon a unique individual from Armissan, 
which had been previously described by Gervais under the name of Tetrao pessieti.* 
Although agreeing with the type in its general characters, the Carnegie example 
differs from it in its greatly reduced length of wing, and in the disproportion of its 
limb bones; hence it may properly be regarded as constituting a distinct species. It 
may be fittingly designated as Taoperdix keltica, in commemoration of the name be- 
stowed by Aristotle upon the inhabitants of the country near Narbonne.’ 
TAOPERDIX KELTICA, sp. nov. (Plates XIII.—XI1V.) 
Founded upon the crushed skeleton of a bird having approximately the size of a 
ruffed grouse (Bonasa wmbellus), and differing from the type species of Tuoperdix in 
the relative proportions of its limb bones, especially its much reduced humerus ; also 
with shorter mandible. Upper Eocene ; Armissan. 
Although the skeleton is considerably dismembered and confused, both in the 
type of this species and in that of 7. pessieti, as may be seen from a comparison of 
the plates, this circumstance must be regarded as rather fortunate than otherwise, 
since it permits of a more precise examination of the several parts. It is also fortu- 
nate that these two type-specimens should supplement each other in important 
respects. For our knowledge of the cranium we must depend solely upon the speci- 
men belonging to the Carnegie Museum, although the mandible is present in both. 
Most of the limb bones, too, are better preserved in the new than in the older known 
species; but the latter, on the other hand, alone exhibits the furculum, sternum and 
pelvis in satisfactory manner. In the accompanying restoration of T. keltica, parts 
which are wanting or not clearly recognizable in the actual fossil are represented in 
outline after analogy with the type species or with recent pheasants, as the case may 
be. hat is to say, when an epiphysis or articular condyle has become crushed or 
otherwise obliterated in the fossil before us, these parts are restored according to the 
' Oiseaux Fossiles de Ja France, Vol. IT., p. 225, pl. 127, Paris, 1871. 
2 Comptes Rendus, Vol. LIV. (1861), p. 896. 
3 Prior to the Roman conquest of Gaul, the whole of that country bore the name of Keltica ; but after its occupation 
by the Romans the southern provinces were distinguished from the rest of Keltica by conferring upon them the name 
of Gallia Narbonensis. An interesting description of the Narbonnaise is given by Strabo in the fourth book of his Geog- 
raphy, and further accounts of this region are to be found in the well-known History of Polybius. Both of these ancient 
writers mention among the wonders of this country the occurrence of so-called ‘‘ subterranean fish ’’ or ‘‘dug mullets,”’ 
which the inhabitants obtained by digging to a depth of two or three feet in marshy districts. 
