§ 15. OR NITHICHNITES, OR FOSSIL FOOT-PRINTS OF BIRDS. 559 



naturalists ; but the discovery of the bones of tridactyle 

 birds (Moa, see ante, p. 129), in the alluvial deposits of 

 New Zealand, some of which indicate a size equal to that 

 of the most colossal of the fossil imprints, has removed 

 that objection, and shown that in comparatively modern 

 times, the earth was trod by birds as gigantic as the bipeds, 

 that strode along the sea-shores of the Triassic ocean.* 



I must not, however, dwell longer on this inviting sub- 

 ject, and will only add, that while offering my humble 

 tribute of admiration to the sagacity and patience with 

 which the subject has been investigated by Professor 

 Hitchcock and others, and fully admitting the close resem- 

 blance of the bipedal fossil foot-prints to those of birds, 

 I consider the following caution of Professor Owen to be 

 deserving of the most serious attention: — "Foot-prints 

 alone, like those termed * Ornithichnites,' are insufficient to 

 support the inference of the progression of the highly deve- 

 loped organization of birds of flight, by the creatures which 

 have left them. The Rhyncosaur, and the biped Ptero- 

 dactyles, already warn us how nearly the ornithic type may 

 be approached, without the essential characters of the 

 Saurian being lost; and by the Chirotherian Ichnolites, 

 we learn how closely an animal, in all probability a Batra- 

 chian, may resemble a pedimanous mammal in the form of 

 its foot-prints.""|' 



16. The Permian (Magnesian Limestone) Formation. 

 — The group of strata thus designated was formerly termed 



* The close resemblance of many of the American foot-marks to 

 those made by recent birds is most striking. Mr. Lyell, in his charm- 

 ing volumes, " Travels in North America," has placed this corre- 

 spondence, I might almost say identity, in a strong point of view, by 

 giving figures of recent foot-marks of the Sandpiper, on hardened red 

 mud, from the Bay of Fundy ; these specimens are now in the British 

 Museum for comparison with the fossil imprints. — See " Travels in 

 North America," vol. ii. pi. vii. 



f Brit. Assoc. Kep. 1841, p. 203. 



