[723] Ossemens Fossiles, tom. iii. p. 302, plates lxxii.—lxxv.
FOSSIL VULTURE.
Lign. 246. Fossil Bird. Eocene. Montmartre.
(Cuvier, Oss. Foss. vol. iii. p. 318, pl. lxxiii. fig. 2.)
The remains of this individual consist only of a thin brown pellicle, indicating the form and proportions of the head, body, and limbs.
Lithornis vulturinus. Geol. Trans. 2d series, vol. vi. p. 206, pl. xxi. figs. 5 and 6.—Under the name of Lithornis (petrified-bird), Professor Owen has described the fossil remains of a bird, consisting of two most characteristic bones,—the sternum and sacrum,—and fragments of other bones, obtained from the London Clay of the Isle of Sheppey. These relics present a close agreement with the corresponding bones of the Vulture tribe, but indicate a smaller species of Vulture than any now known to exist.
In his "History of British Fossil Mammalia and Birds," 1846, Professor Owen has also described another sacrum from the Sheppey Clay, a sternum from Primrose Hill, and the cranium of a bird, probably of the Halcyonidæ family, from the same eocene deposit at Sheppey. This has also yielded a portion of shank-bone, which, according to Mr. Bowerbank, indicates a bird of the size of a full-grown albatross. Brit. Assoc. 1851.
Some few specimens of cylindrical bones from the Chalk and the Wealden[724] have been previously referred to Birds, and described as remains of species of that family. These fossils, however, have lately been reexamined in comparison with more perfect bones of similar character; and, with the exception of a few, the structure of which decidedly has the characters belonging to bird’s bone, the result of this investigation has assigned them to Pterodactyles.[725] The long thin cylindrical bones from the Stonesfield Oolite are probably all Pterodactylian also, as suggested by the late Mr. Miller.
[724] One fragment of a bone, apparently of an ulna, retained a row of small eminences, probably the points of attachment for the quills of the secondary feathers of the wings. This specimen would appear to have a decided reference to ornithic structure, but it was transferred to the British Museum, and is not now to be seen.