Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, 4. köide,2. number

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Page 493 - Onward they came, a dark continuous cloud Of congregated myriads numberless, The rushing of whose wings was as the sound Of a broad river, headlong in its course Plunged from a mountain summit ; or the roar Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm, Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks.
Page 443 - They consist of the greater part of a skeleton, embracing all of the bones of the anterior and posterior extremities, excepting the femora. Unfortunately, the bill and the anterior portion of the head are wanting, but the outlines of the remainder of the head and of the neck are distinctly traceable. The bones are all in situ, and indicate beyond question a high ornithic type, probably referable to the Oscine division of the Passeres. The specimen bears also remarkably distinct impressions of the...
Page 325 - ... part of its natural history. We require also to know its exact range at the present day and in prehistoric times, and to have some knowledge of its geological age, the place of its earliest appearance on the globe, and of the various extinct forms most nearly allied to it. To those who accept the theory of development as worked out by Mr. Darwin, and the views as to the general permanence and immense antiquity of the great continents and oceans so ably developed by. Sir Charles Lyell, it ceases...
Page 333 - ... this in a subdivision of the earth which is established for the very purpose of expressing such contrasts more clearly and concisely than by ordinary geographical terminology, would be both illogical and inconvenient. The one question then remains, whether the Nearctic region should be kept separate, or whether it should form part of the Palaearctic or of the Neotropical regions.
Page 497 - ... be entirely destroyed. After they have passed, nothing remains but the large branches and the roots, which being under ground have escaped their voracity." And in a late work of travels in the same country we find the following passage : — " During our ride (from Cordova to Seville) we observed a number of men advancing in skirmishing order across the country, and thrashing the ground most savagely with long flails. Curious to know what could be the motives for this Xerxes-like treatment of...
Page 445 - Picarian bird (Uintornis liu:aris) related to the Woodpeckers, described by Professor 0. C. Marsh in 1872, from the Lower Tertiary of Wyoming Territory. Probably the insect-bearing shales of Colorado will afford, on further exploration, other types of the higher groups of birds. For the opportunity of describing these interesting specimens I am indebted to Mr. SH Scudder, who obtained them during his last season's (1877) explorations of the Florissant insect- beds.
Page 537 - It contains from two to three thousand eggs, each of which is 1-3 mm. long and about one-third as wide, ellipsoidal, translucent, sordid white, with a delicate shell, and surrounded and separated from the adjoining eggs by a thin layer of the same white albuminous material which covers the whole. The outer layer forms a compact arch, with the anterior ends pointing inwards, and the posterior ends showing like faint dots through the white covering. Those of the marginal row lie flat on the attached...
Page 314 - ... with easily defined, and therefore easily remembered, boundaries", providing that " we do not violate any clear affinities or produce any glaring irregularities".
Page 351 - Realm rather than as a distinct primary region. Madagascar, with the Mascarene Islands, on the other hand, while perhaps possessing a closer affinity with Africa than with any other continental region, has yet a fauna made up so largely of peculiar types that it seems more in accordance with the facts of distribution to regard it as a separate primary region. "The Indo-African Realm, as thus restricted, forms a highly natural division. Although its two principal areas are quite widely separated,...
Page 487 - On the east, the 103d meridian ; on the south, the south line of Colorado and Utah ;' on the west, the west line of Utah extended north to British America ; the northern line being somewhere in British America — even this area in the northern part being expanded indefinitely east and west. Now for the proof. While connected with the United States Geological Survey, under Dr.

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