Origin of Species Variorum

Comparison with 1861

Had it not been for the rare accident of the preservation of footsteps in the new red sandstone of the United States, who would have ventured to suppose that, besides reptiles, no less than at least thirty kinds of birds, some of gigantic size, existed during that period? Notwithstanding that the number of joints shown in the fossil impressions correspond with the number in the several toes of living birds' feet, some authors doubt whether the animals which left the impressions were really birds. Not a fragment of bone has been discovered in these beds. ↑ Until quite recently these authors might have maintained, and some have maintained, that the whole class of birds came suddenly into existence during an early tertiary period; but now we know, on the authority of Professor Owen (as may be seen in Lyells Manual), that a bird certainly lived during the deposition of the upper green-sand. ↑ ↑

I may give another instance, which from having passed under my own eyes has much struck me. In a memoir on Fossil Sessile Cirripedes, I have stated that, from the number of existing and extinct tertiary species; from the extraordinary abundance of the individuals of many species all over the world, from the Arctic regions to the equator, inhabiting various zones of depths from the upper tidal limits to 50 fathoms; from the perfect manner in which specimens are preserved

Had it not been for the rare accident of the preservation of footsteps in the new red sandstone of the United States, who would have ventured to suppose that, besides reptiles, no less than at least thirty kinds of birds, some of gigantic size, existed during that period? Notwithstanding that the number of joints shown in the fossil impressions corresponds with the number in the several toes of living birds' feet, some authors doubt whether the animals which left these impressions were really birds. Not a fragment of bone has been discovered in these beds. ↑ Until quite recently these authors might have maintained, and some have maintained, that the whole class of birds came suddenly into existence during the eocene period; but now we know, on the authority of Professor Owen, ... that a bird certainly lived during the deposition of the upper greensand; and still more recently, that strange bird, the Archeopteryx, with a long lizard-like tail, bearing a pair of feathers on each joint, and with its wings furnished with two free claws, has been discovered in the oolitic slates of Solenhofen. Hardly any recent discovery shows more forcibly than this how little we as yet know of the former inhabitants of the world. ↑

I may give another instance, which, from having passed under my own eyes, has much struck me. In a memoir on Fossil Sessile Cirripedes, I have stated that, from the number of existing and extinct tertiary species; from the extraordinary abundance of the individuals of many species all over the world, from the Arctic regions to the equator, inhabiting various zones of depths from the upper tidal limits to 50 fathoms; from the perfect manner in which specimens are pre- served