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But, after all, it is by no means certain, though very probable, that the Connecticut footsteps were made by very ornithic reptiles, or extremely sauroid birds.
Amongst many other obligations which the Author has to acknowledge to Professor Huxley, are the pointing out of this very difficulty, and the calling his attention to the striking resemblance between certain teeth of the dog and of the thylacine as one instance, and certain ornithic peculiarities of pterodactyles as another.
Finally, he has thrown out the suggestion that the celebrated footsteps left by some extinct three-toed creatures on the very ancient sandstone of Connecticut were made, not, as hitherto supposed, by true birds, but by more or less ornithic reptiles.
Yet the interval between them is completely filled, in the mesozoic fauna, by birds which have reptilian characters, on the one side, and reptiles which have ornithic characters, on the other.
Lucas Barrett found in the Cambridge Greensand of the Cretaceous series, the femur, tibia, and some other bones of a swimming bird, supposed by him to be of the gull tribe. His opinion as to the ornithic character of the remains was afterwards confirmed by Professor Owen.
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