4 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



an open doubt that the Archaeopteryx might have reptilian affinities, 

 and that Hhamphorhynchus — the most bird-like of the Pterodactyles 

 — might have had feathers, to preen which might have been one of 

 the offices of a horny beak projecting beyond the few isolated teeth 

 set near the fork of the jaws. Neither of these surmises are tenable. 

 The Ehamphorhynchus had long strong teeth — unless we are mis- 

 taken in our interpretation of the excellent example acquired with 

 other remarkable fossils besides the Archaeopteryx in the Haberlein 

 collection — down to the very end of the albatross-like bill or jaws (fig.l, 

 p. 8) ; while no traces of feathers have ever been met with associated 

 with any of the numerous debris of those reptiles. As to the Ar- 

 chseopteryx, we are not aware that the inference originally arrived at 

 by Professor Owen and Mr. Waterhouse, that it was a true bird, has 

 been successfully impugned in any way. Those palaeontologists who 

 were silently present at the Eoyal Society's meeting, or who were 

 " conspicuous by their absence," whose opinions we should have been 

 glad to know, have maintained a significant silence. And the prac- 

 tice of naturalists in this respect seems nowadays like the practice of 

 superior officers in Government establishments, — to find fault when- 

 ever they can, but never to give any praise. 



It is most instructive to find in this fossil that more generalized 

 type of structure presented by extinct birds of the Mesozoic age. 

 The birds whose remains have been found in the Triassic, or as 

 modern A merican geologists suggest, Liassic or Oolitic, sandstones of 

 Connecticut, belong to the Cursorial type. These birds have been 

 placed " at the lowest step of the scale of ornithic organization." In 

 the abrogation or non-development of the wings, and in the number 

 and direction of the toes, whose impressions have been afforded to us, 

 we have evidence of a less amount of ornithic specialization in them- 

 and a larger retention of the original vertebrate characters. In the 

 Archseopteryx, the oldest bird of which osseous remains have as yet 

 been found, we have also the retention of the more generalized type, 

 but in another direction. The wings are indeed functional and capa- 

 ble of flight ; the shape of the pectoral ridge on the humerus, and of 

 the furculum, prove this ; and the hinder extremities are modified 

 for perching. 



But in the twenty caudal vertebrae, we see the persistence of the 

 law of generalization. In all embryo birds the caudal vertebrae are 

 distinct : as life progresses, anchylosis goes on and they become 

 shortened and united together. The eighteen vertebrae in the young 



