Aves. 



89 



Class 2.— AYES (Birds). 



'• Birds," says Professor Huxley, "are animals so similar to 

 Reptilia in all the most essential features of their organisation, 

 that they may he said to be merely an extremely modified and 

 aberrant Reptilian type. Their differentiation is, however, so 

 great as to indicate "without doubt their rights to form a distinct 

 class." 



It has generally been considered that the most ancient type of pavilion, 

 birds known is that of the great wingless running birds, such Table-case 

 as the Ostrich, Rhea. Emeu, Cassowary, and Apteryx, and no doubt 

 these may have had a very high antiquity, but the oldest fossil 

 bird at present discovered is the Archceopteryx macrura of Owen 

 (see Fig. 112), This remarkable long-tailed bird was obtained 

 from the lithographic stone* of Eichstadt, near Solenhofen, in oldest Bird 



known. 



TheArchseo- 

 pteryx. 



Fro. 112.— Head of the Berlin Archceopteryx (nat. size), after Dames 



Bavaria. The stone is so fine-grained that besides the 

 bones of the wings, the furculum, or "merry thought," the 

 pelvis, the legs and the tail, we have actually casts or im- 

 pressions on the stone (made when it was as yet only soft 

 mud) of all the feathers of the wings and of the tail. The 

 leg-bone and foot are similar to that of a modern perching 

 bird, but the tail is elongated like that of a rat, or of a lizard, 

 with a pair of feathers springing from each joint, a character 

 not to be found in any living bird. More recently another 

 example has been obtained from the same locality, in which 

 the head is very well preserved ; this specimen is in the Berlin 

 Museum. A photograph and an engraving of the Berlin 

 specimen are exhibited near the window. Further examination 



* The equivalent in age of the Kimmeridge clay o£ Englarri. 

 of strata.) 



(See table 



The Berlin 

 Archseo- 



pteiyx. 



