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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. 



and others, but the few bones thus far in the hands of science 

 are too fragmentary to admit of saying to what manner of birds 

 they belonged, much less as to the affinities of the several 

 forms they represent. Others have also come to light in 

 Europe to which the same remarks apply. 



As I have already pointed out in the Journal of Anatomy 

 (London, April, 1892, p. 202), I consider all the species of the 

 genus Hesperornis as having belonged to a family Hesperor- 

 nithidae, and this family may possibly have been an offshoot of a 

 superfamily, the Hesperornithoidea, which contained forms pos- 

 sessing the power of flight ; and from these latter our present 

 Pygopodes have descended, while the offshoot-genus Hespe- 

 rornis died out during the cretaceous time, and left no direct 

 descendants. 



What I have said elsewhere in regard to the characters in 

 the skeletons of these ancient birds not possessed by their rep- 

 resentatives of the present age, applies also to Hesperornis. 

 For example, the structure of the palate, the extremities of the 

 pelvic bones being free, and so forth, are derived from their 

 reptile ancestors just as the ostriches derived theirs, and the 

 last named are now existing forms that have carried them down. 



Of the remains of the fossil Enaliornis I know nothing 

 beyond what I have learned from reading. Lydekker, in the 

 article "Fossil Birds," in Newton's Dictionary of Birds 

 (p. 280), has said, "In 1858 Barrett discovered in the Upper 

 Greensand of Cambridgeshire remains described by Professor 

 Seeley in 1866 {Ami. and Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 3, Vol. XVIII, 

 p. 100) under the preoccupied name Pelagornis, but in 1867 

 renamed Enaliornis ('Index to Aves and Reptilia, Camb. 

 Mus.,' Quart. Journ. Geo/. Soc, Vol. XXXII, p. 509). These 

 indicate a bird apparently allied to Colymbus, and not improb- 

 ably to Hesperornis." 



Fiirbringer fully discusses what is known of the Enaliornith- 

 idae (pp. 1 152, 1 153) and is satisfied of the relation of Enali- 

 ornis to the extinct toothed loon, Hesperornis, as well as to the 

 various existing Pygopodes, and classifies it accordingly. 



