FEATHERED FORMS OF OTHER DAYS. 
3SS 
the teeth were actually placed in sockets, and 
were reproduced just as they are now among 
the crocodiles. In the remainder of his organ- 
ization he was preeminently like our modern 
birds, having perfectly formed wings and 
other structures of the class well specialized. 
The eocene period of England and other 
parts of Europe, as well as the same geo- 
logical horizon in our own country, through 
the many extensive explorations of so able 
an investigator as Professor Cope, has fur- 
nished a large number of birds. A region 
known as the Paris Basin yielded many others, 
some of which the illustrious Baron Cuvier 
described with greater or less exactness. Birds 
become still more numerous in the miocene, 
pliocene, and post-pliocene beds ; and caves 
in various localities have afforded many re- 
mains of great interest belonging to this class. 
Many of the forms, however, from these 
more recent formations are more or less closely 
allied to existing birds, and, as they have not 
as yet been carefully worked up, we will pass 
these groups by here, without 
further remark. What has 
been said must not be under- 
stood to apply to the exhaust- 
ive work bestowed upon many 
of these relics recovered from 
the Paris Basin by M. Al- 
phonse Milne-Edwards. 
Two of the three great orders into 
which birds are now divided are 
called the Rati tee and the Carinatce. 
The principal feature upon which this 
classification is grounded refers to the 
fact that the sternum or breast-bone 
of the Ratitce is devoid of a keel, the 
reverse being the case in the Cari- 
natce. By far the greater number, and 
at the same time the most highly 
organized of our birds, belong to the 
latter order, the Carinatce. 
Now we all know something of 
the strange Apteryx , familiar to us as 
the Kiwi-kiwi in so many works of 
travel. Thesebirds arestill tobefound 
in New Zealand, and belong to this 
great order of the Ratitce , or keelless 
birds ; they are, too, like all the other 
members of this order, devoid of the 
po wer of flight. Hcspcrornis was a 
ratite bird, while on the other hand 
the more specialized (in that respect) 
Ichthyornis victor was a carinate bird. 
The breast-bones of reptiles are de- 
void of a keel. All of the remaining 
groups that make up the Ratitce order 
are ostriches, or ostrich-like birds — 
livingrepresentatives of whichare still 
to be found in the South American 
pampas, in Africa and Arabia, and in the cas- 
sowaries of the East Indies and Australia, the 
emeu being confined to the latter continent. 
These ostrich-like birds figure very promi- 
nently among the extinct feathered forms in a 
great many parts of the world ; ostriches were 
at one time inhabitants of this country, and 
Professor Cope has described one of enor- 
mous dimensions from the eocene of Texas 
and New Mexico. The remains of an ostrich 
have been found in the tertiary of the lower 
ranges of the Himalaya mountains. But to 
seek the great center of the region where the 
remains of this class of birds were and still 
are found, we must turn our attention to New 
Zealand and the young continent, the great 
island of Madagascar. 
The two chief extinct genera of New Zea- 
land are Dinornis and Palapteryx. They 
were known as moas, because it was believed 
that they were contemporary with the Maoris, 
the early natives of these islands. 
A very good type of these ostrich birds is 
the genus just referred 
Vo, Palapteryx, and this 
form has been chosen 
for illustration in the 
engraving. Assistance 
was afforded me in re- 
producing this figure 
by the cut in Professor 
. . r ■»». — , 
. . • - ' j - 
:STO RATION OK THE SKELETON OK ICHTHYORNIS VICTOR. 
(AFTKR prokessor marsh.) 
