THE AMERICAN NA TURALIST. [Vol. XXXV II. 



to me. My thanks are particularly due to Mr. Lucas for his 

 many courtesies in bringing the material before me, and to 

 the free use of the collections under his charge. I am also 

 indebted to my friend the late Prof. E. D. Cope, the late 

 Prof. O. C. Marsh, and others for suggestions. 



With these brief prefatory remarks given by way of explana- 

 tion we may next proceed to the consideration of Order I of 

 the class Aves, — the Saururas, and the other groups enumer- 

 ated above. 



I. ORDER SAURUR^E. 



So widely known is the fossil material representing the cele- 

 brated species of Archaeopteryx that any very extended descrip- 

 tion of it would be quite unnecessary in this place. A great 

 deal has been written upon the two species of this extinct genus 

 since 1861, when Hermann von Meyer described the first speci- 

 men, which was probably nothing more than the impression of 

 a primary feather discovered in the lithographic slate of Solen- 

 hofen, in Bavaria, a deposit belonging to the Upper Jurassic. 



Two years afterward Owen described the first skeletal 

 remains found in the same locality, it being largely the pos- 

 terior part of the bird now known to science as Archceoptcryx 

 lithographica. A far more perfect example was found in 1877, 

 from which the skull and the greater part of the skeleton could 

 be made out. The first of these specimens is now in the British 

 Museum, and the last one in the Museum of Berlin. It has 

 never been the fortune of the present writer to have personally 

 examined any of this material. In addition to the literature of 

 the subject, however, I have before me a fine photograph of 

 the British Museum specimen, which was secured by the Cen- 

 tury Company of New York City to illustrate an article of 

 mine in the Century Magazine (January, 1886). The majority 

 of those illustrations were reproductions of my own drawings 

 and among them a restoration I had made of Archaeopteryx, 

 but had I this restoration to make again, it would present 

 a very different appearance, especially in the covering of the 



