The New York herald., 1922-05-21
BY LEE S. CRANDALL,
Curator of Birds, New York
Geological Park.

L" HE controversy now raging Sc
fiercely over the ancestry Of
- man leads us naturally to O
consideration of the origin of some OF
the lower forms OF life. If the human
race has had a long climb upward
from the murk of early days. birds
have had longer one. To-day more
than 10000 kinds of birds are known
in the world. and beyond question a
great many more remain to be dis
covered. With so many contestants
the resulting struggle for food is nat
urally a keen one, and birds of one
sort or another make use of every
kind of food imaginable.
The exigencies of the situation have
led to intense specialization in feeding
habits, so that many species may in
habit the same territory without seri-
ously interfering with the others food
supply. Other factors besides that of
nutrition have caused divergence from
the common stock. so that now we
find birds so diverse in form, color and
habit that assignment to their proper
position in the tree of avian descent
is no easy task.
Evolutionists believe that man arose
from the basic stock that produced
the apes. The ancestry Of birds can
be retraced still further, to none other
than the lowly reptile. Fossil birds, to
which we must look for our evidence.
are almost as scarce as fossil men.
Extinct reptiles and mammals have
been preserved for us in abundance.
but the very power of fight, which
raised the bird above its reptilian an
cestors, has done much to cheat us Of
avian remains. Cumbrous, awkward
creatures, without this magic gift,
chance caught in sticky pitch or the
treackerous mud of some lagoon, are
unable to escape it's grip. But the
light bodied. quick winged bird is sell
dom trapped in such way.
Two Ancient Forms Found
In Kansas Cretaceous Rock
In spite of their relative scarcity,
and the miracle Of chance by which
they must be found, few bird fossils
are known From the Cretaceous
rocks of western Kansas, the. age of
W
seven million years. we have two
ancient creatures, obviously birds, yet
undeniably of reptilian affinities.
Icthyornis, the size of a pigeon, had
strongly developed wings and evil
IDENTIFY was a bird of strong fight.
Hesperornis, on the other hand, was
a highly specialized aquatic species.
which, depended on it's strong legs for
its motive power, the wings being re-
duced to mere vestiges. Yet these
two birds, even at that remote time
so we'll adapted to their respective en-
vironments and so divergent in char
acter, had reptilian jaws, plentifully
equipped with strong, efficient teeth!
But from the Jurassic periodI dIseveral
millions of years earlier, We have two
fossils that rest at the foundation of
every evolutionist's belief. This crea-
ture, known as Archaopteryx, was so
perfectly intermediate between rep
tiles and birds as to leave little to be
desired. The lizard head had jaws
we'll armed with teeth; the tail was
perfectly reptilian. except that from
each component bond sprung a feather
at each side: it's well developed wings
must have been capable of at least
some powers of flight, but three
fingers of the fore limb, instead of
being encased in skin, We're free and
each was armed with strong, lizards
claw
To know the birds of our day we
must have. some knowledge of these
strange creatures which have gone
before. Species have multiplied, con-
ditions and characters have changed,
yet we may still trace many of the