316 
reous schist of Pappenheim ; Manuel d’ Hist. Nat. T. n. p. 408. 
Faujas St. Fond has also presented us with two indubitable fossils of 
this class, being two feathers from the quarries of Yestena Nuova, 
imbedded in the same stone in which the fishes are found. 
Fossil feathers are very rarely met with. A fine specimen of this 
kind is figured by Scheuchzer, part of a feather being enclosed in a 
piece of the fissile stone of (Eningen. M. Walch also describes two 
specimens in his possession. One of these is the barrel part of the 
quill, about the size of a goose-quill, to which a part of the feather is 
adherent. The other is a small feather, with its tubular part. 
A beak is described by Rome de Lisle, and figured in Davila’s Cata- 
logue, said to be from the neighbourhood of Reutlingen (Catalog, m. 
No. 25), which, in the opinion of M. Cuvier, is merely a bivalve shell, 
fixed obliquely in the stone. In the same work, a fossil bone of a bird 
is mentioned ; but it is neither figured nor described ; being only 
spoken of as being from Canstadt. This also, I conceive, should be 
admitted as an ornitholite, with much hesitation : bones which I have 
received from Canstadt, under the same description, are bones which 
are merely incrusted by a calcareous deposition. Scheuchzer speaks 
of the head of a bird in a piece of the black schist of Eisleben, but at 
the same time admits of its near resemblance to a pink-blossom. 
The Abbe Fortis, than whom very few have had equal opportunities 
of exercising an excellent judgment on the nature and characters of dif- 
ferent fossils, is remarkably sceptical as to any fossils of this description. 
This assiduous naturalist is not even satisfied with the specimens of 
fossil feathers of Mount Bolca, which have been just spoken of as hav- 
ing been figured by M. Faujas, Annates du Mus. &fc. vi. p. 21, pi. 1. 
Lamanon described, in 1^82, the impression of a whole bird from 
Montmartre ; but, in its delineation, he allowed his fancy rather too 
tree scope, adding to it the feathers of the wings and tail. Fortis, 
on the other hand, examined the same specimen ; and allowing his 
imagination to strengthen his prepossessions, at the same time taking 
