Recent Literature. 
107 
two forms actually cross one another, and that the area where P. 
bilineata comes into contact with the northern section of P. nigri- 
ceps corresponds more or less to that occupied by P. albiloris , at 
once suggesting the supposition that P. albiloris is not a true 
species at all, but due to the intermingling of P. bilineata and 
P. nigriceps , and, further, that technically these last named birds 
are not true species either.” 
The authors next endeavor to explain this geographical muddle 
by some curious conjectures which exactly reverse the accepted 
workings of the theory of evolution as understood on this side of 
the Atlantic. P. nigriceps and P. bilineata are supposed to 
have been originally distinct species, which having extended their 
respective ranges to a point of meeting, where a hybrid race, 
P. albilora , was produced, crossed each other’s path, and in their 
further extension apart, resumed their distinctive characters. 
A simpler solution than this must surely be found to exist, and 
to the ornithologist who next takes up the investigation, I offer 
the preceding analogy, in the hope that it may at least have some 
bearing on what seems to me a parallel case. 
Eecmt Ifiitratttw. 
Vogt on the Second Fossil Archaeopteryx.* — This specimen 
was found by M. Haeberlein in the same slates as the first. As described by 
Professor Vogt, it shows several structural peculiarities which were not 
visible in the first specimen. Of the head, which was not preserved in 
the first example, Professor Vogt only says that the upper jaw had two 
small teeth at its end (i. e. in premaxillae?), and that the entire skull 
is strongly reptilian in its appearance. The position of the teeth in 
the Arcliceopteryx is thus exactly the opposite of their position in the 
Odontornitkes, where teeth were absent only in the end of the upper jaw. 
The cervical ,• vertebrae were not very numerous and were provided with 
ribs. The dorsal vertebrae were ten in number, and their ribs lacked unci- 
nate processes. One of the points of great interest is the thoracic arch, 
* L’ Archaeopteryx macroura. — Un intermediate entre les oiseaux et les reptiles. 
Par M. C. Vogt. La Revue Scientifique, 2 ? Ser., 9 e Annee, No. 11, 13 Sept. 1879, pp. 
241-248, figg. 18-21. There is a translation of this piece, supplemented by a photo- 
graph of the slab, in the “ Ibis ” for October, 1880, pp. 434-456. 
