On a Feathered Fossil. 315 



Museum, specimens from the Miocene of Allier, in France, and 

 CEningen, near Constance ; from the Upper Eocene of Puy de 

 Dome, Perignat, and Auvergne; and from the Eocene of 

 Montmartre and Meudon, near Paris ; and from our own Eocene 

 of Hordwell and Sheppey. We have also the remains of a 

 large bird from the Sewalik Hills of India ; casts of the bones 

 and egg of the ^Epyornis from Madagascar, and the entire 

 skeleton of the Dinornis, and very numerous separate bones of 

 this genus and Palapteryx from New Zealand. With the two 

 exceptions of the Eocene slate rocks of Glaris, in which the 

 almost entire skeleton of a small passerine bird, about the size 

 of a lark, has been discovered, and the gypsum quarries of 

 Montmartre, where two or three connected skeletons of diffe- 

 rent species of birds have been found, these remains consist of 

 detached bones or fragments only, or of eggs (from Auvergne) 

 or feather impressions (from Aix and Bonn). Indeed, the 

 whole collection of Ornitholites known could be displayed in a 

 single table case of ordinary size. 



This, of course, is exclusive of the great New Zealand and 

 Madagascar wingless birds, the Dinornis and ./Epyornis, the 

 Notornis and Palapteryx, which, like the Dodo and Solitaire, have 

 perhaps all been exterminated by the agency of man, or within 

 the historic period. When we compare this dearth of evidence 

 in the geological record with the vast numbers of species of 

 living birds (very partially illustrated by the collection of stuffed 

 examples in the Ornithological Gallery of the British Museum), 

 we cannot but ask the question — Why are no fossil birds found 

 in strata in which remains of other animals frequently occur, 

 which at first sight appear as little likely to have been pre- 

 served as the bones and feathers of a bird ? Sir Charles Lyell 

 remarks, that " the powers of flight possessed by most birds 

 would insure them against perishing by numerous casualties, 

 to which quadrupeds are exposed during floods." And again, 

 " If they chanced to be drowned, or to die when swimming on 

 the water, it would scarcely ever happen that they would be 

 submerged, so as to become preserved in sedimentary deposits." 



That they can be readily preserved under favourable cir- 

 cumstances is proved by the fine examples found at Mont- 

 martre and Claris . 



That we shall have to record many more omitholitic dis- 

 coveries is, I think, proved by the startling announcement 

 which appeared in print, for the first time in England, in the 

 Annals and Magazine of Natural History for April last, headed 

 " On a new Fossil Reptile, supposed to be furnished with 

 Feathers," by A. Wagner.* In May appeared another paper, 



* Being a translation from the Sltzungsiericlvte der Miinchier AJcacl. : dsr 

 Wiss, 1861, p. 146, by W. S. Dallas, F.L.S., of the York Museum. 



