THE REIGN OF REPTILES. 185 



lived at one time upon the mud flats of Connecticut, it 

 does not yet follow that the footprints under considera- 

 tion were impressed by typical birds like those to which 

 these tracks have generally been attributed. [See Appen- 

 dix, Note VI] 



I am led, therefore, to dissent from the conclusions of 

 Dr. Hitchcock, and to contemplate the tridactyl footprints 

 described by him as the vestiges of reptiles — perhaps orni- 

 thoid reptiles — whose exact organization has not yet been 

 ascertained. It is certainly one of the wonders of geology 

 that so many thousands of footprints should have been 

 preserved in the sandstones of Connecticut and Massachu- 

 setts, and so very few bones discovered of the creatures 

 which made them. In fact, the only traces of bones thus 

 far known were discovered in 1820 at East Windsor, and 

 publicly noticed by Professor Nathan Smith, and more mi 

 nutely described in 1855 by Dr. Wyman. These bones 

 were holloiv, like those of birds, and were thought to yield 

 some support to the bird-track theory. But, besides the 

 presumption that the first birds would not possess this en- 

 dowment of the higher and typical families of the class, it 

 is well known that many Jurassic reptiles — the Dinosau- 

 rians — were equally possessed of hollow bones. The im- 

 perfect condition of these few remains, however, renders it 

 impossible to decide upon their affinities. 



The number and character of these footprints are truly 

 wonderful. Dr. Hitchcock formed a grand museum at Am- 

 herst College, containing eight thousand tracks. In his re- 

 port on the " Ichnology of New England," he figured and 

 described from their footprints no less than one hundred 

 and nineteen species of animals, of which thirty-one are re- 

 garded as birds, and forty-seven as reptiles and batrachi- 

 ans. These footprints occur in regular series, extending 

 sometimes a distance of several feet over the exposed sur- 



