1912] 



Miller: Pacific Coast Avian Palaeontology 



89 



Plesiocarthartes europeus Gaillard, thus becomes at once the 

 most ancient cathartic!, and the only instance known to the 

 author of the occurrence, fossil or Recent, of the family outside 

 the American continents. The species, as far as can be learned, 

 is represented by a single bone, a fragmentary tarsometatarsus 

 preserved in the Museum of Lyons. The specimen is, however, 

 sufficient to establish beyond question the cathartine relation- 

 ships of the species. Its author considers the case to be one of 

 an individual's having straggled from its normal range. In 

 view of the extensive examination of most of the European 

 horizons which has failed thus far to furnish evidence of its 

 further occurrence there, the conclusions reached by Dr. Gail- 

 lard may be considered as probably correct. 



With the progress of work at the University of California 

 our knowledge of the group under discussion is considerably 

 advanced. In the collections from Fossil Lake the abundant 

 avian remains are almost entirely of aquatic forms, although 

 there appear in the University collections, as well as in the much 

 larger Cope and the Condon collections, a number of raptorial 

 species. There are, however, no specimens referable to the Cath- 

 artidae. a rather conspicuous absence. 



There appears no reason deducible from the habits of the 

 turkey vulture of today why, if vultures were present during 

 the formation of these beds, their remains should not have been 

 preserved there. In fact, there is every reason for considering 

 the vulture a more favorable subject for preservation in such 

 deposits than are the other raptors. The turkey vulture is one 

 of the commonest of beach-combers along the shores of both fresh 

 and salt-water bodies and it comes habitually in great flocks to 

 spend the warmer parts of the day wading in the shallower 

 waters or sitting about the sand bars of quiet streams. The 

 negative evidence very strongly suggests the absence of cath- 

 artids from the region during the deposition of the Fossil Lake 

 beds. 



Potter Creek and Samwel caves both furnish remains of 

 these vultures, while the Rancho La Brea asphalt is especially 

 rich in raptorial species, about equally divided between the cath- 

 artids and the falcon ids. 



