378 



1618. A portion of the triassic slate with the relief of the impressions of one of 



the toes of the Omithichnites giganteus, Hitchcock. 



1619. A cast of a slab with the relief of an impression of the Omithichnites 

 giganteus, Hitchcock. 



1620. A cast of a slab with the relief of an impression of the Omithichnites gi- 

 ganteus, Hitchcock. 



This is the most remarkable of the fossil footsteps of the Connecticut 

 triassic slate ; they have as yet been found in one quarry only, at Mount 

 Tom, near Northampton, United States ; here, four nearly parallel tracks 

 of the gigantic Ornithichnite were found, and in one large slab six foot- 

 steps appeared in regular succession, at a distance of four feet from one 

 another. In others the distance varied from four to six feet ; the latter 

 was probably the longest step of this gigantic bird while running. 



We are naturally led to compare these indications of large tridactyle 

 birds of the very remote geological period, indicated by the formation in 

 which they occur, with the actual remains of the skeleton of equally 

 gigantic tridactyle birds, which have perished at a much more recent 

 period in the island of New Zealand. 



The epoch of the Omithichnites is as ancient as that of the Cheiro- 

 theria or Labyrinthodont footsteps in Europe, and more ancient than 

 those of the oolites and lias, from which the remains of our most extra- 

 ordinary extinct reptiles have been obtained : but no fossil bones of birds 

 have been found associated with the Labyrinthodont and Thecodont rep- 

 tiles, nor with those of the lias or oolites, the Pterodactyles of which 

 were once mistaken for birds. The Wealden is the oldest formation in 

 which true ornitholites have hitherto been discovered. The ancient foot- 

 prints of the Connecticut sandstones were for the most part supposed to 

 be those of Grallce ; but the high geological antiquity of those sand- 

 stones, and the interferences which might be deduced from the low cha- 

 racter of the air-breathing animal creation, as indicated by fossil bones, 

 of the condition of the atmosphere during the deposition of the oolites, 

 lias and new red sandstones, induced some Palaeontologists to entertain 

 doubts, whether foot-prints alone were adequate to support the inference 



