Fossil feathers and some heretofore undescribed fossil birds / by R.W. Shufeldt.

  • Robert Wilson Shufeldt
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Fossil feathers and some heretofore undescribed fossil birds / by R.W. Shufeldt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    wing. They are long and rather narrow, but quite as well pre- served, and in precisely the same way as those described for Arch- aeopteryx by Professor Vogt in a previous paragraph. In this specimen, too, there is evidence of some smaller feathers collected about a point from which the primaries diverge. It would appear that maceration had far progressed before these four feathers settled down at the place where they eventually fossilized, and that they had been held together by a single piece of integument at a point common to their attachment to the four apices of the calami. This might likewise have happened had some animal, in devouring this bird, torn off the four feathers, all clinging to a single piece of skin, and that have become separated from the rest of the bird. These feathers belonged to a bird about the same size as, or one perhaps somewhat smaller than, the Palaeospiza Bella of Allen, and it is quite possible that they may have come from the wing of an individual of that species (cf. Figs. 5 and 6). Both are from the Florissant formation of Colorado. As it appeared to be eminently desirable that I compare these feathers with those beautifully preserved ones of Palaeospiza Bella, I made the attempt to borrow the original specimen of that bird, which I was given to understand was the property of the Boston Society of Natural History. In this I was disappointed; and it now appears that that famous slab and invaluable specimen has been lost for a number of years. Only recently, both Dr. J. A. Allen—its original describer—and Dr. Glover M. Allen, secretary of the aforesaid society, have written me that, after several most exhaustive searches, not a trace of the specimen can be found, and no clue has been discovered leading to its place of concealment, or in whose possession it was last. Through the kindness of the librarian of the United States Geological Survey, I was enabled to borrow there a copy of Dr. Allen’s description of his Palaeospiza Bella, and this is now before me.1 As but few ornithologists in this country and abroad know 1 J. A. Allen, “Description of a Fossil Passerine Bird from the Insect-bearing Shales of Colorado,” Bull. U.S. Geol. and Geog. Surv. (F. V. Hayden, U.S. Geol.-in- Charge), IV, No. 2, Washington, May 3, 1878, pp. 443-45; Plate I; Figs. 1 and 2. A most interesting brochure.
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