a few liberties with the original figure, determined it to be the remains 
either of a frog or toad. Cuvier has, however, since examined the 
same specimen, and is confident of its being really the remains of a 
bird. Subsequent examinations have discovered several bones of birds 
in the plaster quarries ; and in a number, indeed, so great, as to leave 
no doubt of a considerable number of the fossil remains of birds being 
contained in these quarries. 
To enable him to show satisfactorily to others the nature of the 
several specimens which he obtained, M. Cuvier has given the charac- 
teristic marks of the correspondent parts in the living animal ; and the 
circumstances by which these parts, in birds, are distinguishable from 
those which approximate to them in form or appearance in other ani- 
mals. Considering that information of this nature cannot but be highly 
acceptable to those who are engaged in pursuits of this kind, I have 
here introduced a sketch of the most important of these observations. 
1st. The foot of a bird differs from that of any other animal, in having 
a single hone in the place of the tarsal and metatarsal hones. 
2dly, Birds are the only class in which the toes all differ, as to the 
number of joints, and in which this number, and the order of the toes 
which have them, is nevertheless fixed. The great toe has two ; the 
first toe, reckoning on the inside, three ; the middle, five ; and the 
outermost, five. The crocodile has the same number of phalanges as 
birds ; but as these have each a metatarsal and tarsal bone, they 
cannot be mistaken. 
There exist but two kinds of exceptions to this rule : the one is, that 
some birds have no great toes ; but in these, the other toes preserve 
the usual order : the other is, in the ostrich and cassowars, which 
have three joints to each toe. The crocodile, indeed, has the same 
number of phalanges ; but as every one of the toes is supported by a 
particular metatarsal bone, and these by several tarsal bones, the dis- 
tinction is easily made. 
The os femoris of birds is distinguishable from that of quadrupeds 
