Note 199 — Front matter (continued 3)

Since Professor Huxley wrote the idea has been completely discarded that these birds occupy such a place as he assigned them. The wing of Hesperornis, for example, is now declared to be an instance of degeneration from one capable of flight. None of these fowls can be considered as the progenitors of any now existing, but all as the descendants of flying ancestors of arboreal habits, whereof no trace has yet been discovered. (See Pycraft's Story of Bird Life, p. 190.)