314 On a Feathered Fossil. 



the Connecticut rocks, and Dr. Dana has very ingeniously 

 argued from an analysis of these bodies, that, like guano, they 

 are the droppings of birds rather than of reptiles. 



In the strata between these red sandstones (formerly con- 

 sidered to be of Triassic age and now attributed by modern 

 American geologists to the Lias or Oolite) and the lower Eocene, 

 only two discoveries of reputed bones of birds have been made. 

 The first of these is the Cimoliornis diomedeus, a long-winged 

 bird from the chalk of Burham, near Maidstone, described in 

 1840 by Professor Owen in the Geological Transactions, second 

 series, vol. vi v from a leg and wing-bone which he considered 

 to have belonged to " one of the longipennate natatorial birds, 

 equalling in size the albatross."* 



In May, 1845, Dr. Bowerbank figured and described (in 

 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, p. 7, pi. 1) several 

 bones and a part of the head of a pterodactyle, from the same 

 chalk pit at Burham, near Maidstone, and after carefully com- 

 paring these with the shaft of the humerus of Cimoliornis, he 

 was led to believe that it also was the bone of a pterodactyle and 

 not a bird. In Dixon's Geology of Sussex, edited by Professor 

 Owen, in 1850, this wing-bone is again figured and. described 

 as that of a bird. The arguments in favour of the Professor's 

 theory are there given at length, to which I must refer the 

 reader, pp. 402-3. 



In a subsequent work,f the Cimoliornis is omitted, and the 

 Pterodactylus giganteus, Bowerbank, from the middle chalk of 

 Kent, is recognized as one of the largest and the last of the 

 flying reptiles known. 



The second recorded discovery of bird remains in the 

 Mesozoic rocks is noticed in the supplement to Sir Charles 

 Ly ell's fifth edition of his Manual of Geology, 1859, p. 40: 

 "Mr. Lucas Barrett in 1858 discovered the remains of a bird 

 in the Upper Greensand, near Cambridge, a formation worked 

 extensively for phosphate of lime, extracted from coprolitic 

 nodules. The bird was rather larger than the common pigeon, 

 and probably belonged to the order natatores, and, like most 

 of the gull tribe, had well-developed wings. Portions of the 

 metacarpus, metatarsus, tibia, and femur have been detected, 

 and the determinations of Mr. Barrett have been confirmed by 

 Professor Owen." These bird bones remain unchallenged, 

 but are the only true ones on record, 



Ornitholites have been met with in at least a dozen dif- 

 ferent localities in the tertiary deposits of Europe, and also 

 at two or three places in our own island. 



We possess, in the geological collection of the National 



* Owen's British Fossil Mammals and Birds, 1846, p. 547. 

 t Owen's Palaeontology, second edition, 1861, p. 275. 



