From R. V. Taylor
Abingdon, Oxfordshire
Shipman correctly cites T. H. Huxley as the first to claim a dinosaur
ancestry for archaeopteryx, in 1868. The curious feature of this is that Huxley
entered the fray so late; before 1867, he considered that birds and dinosaurs
shared a common Triassic ancestor, and dismissed archaeopteryx as being too
recent to be of significance.
Between them, the great Victorian scientists considered most of the
possibilities, such as warm-bloodedness, being debated today. Some read so much
into the archaeopteryx specimen that Hugh Falconer, the palaeontologist, was
moved to write in 1865: “Tomorrow you will find the liver and lights; and, in
the long run, the fossil song.”
