Marsh, Othniel Charles; Odontornithes: A monograph on the extinct toothed birds of North America; with thirty-four plates and forty woodcuts. 1880

Marsh, Othniel Charles; Odontornithes: A monograph on the extinct toothed birds of North America; with thirty-four plates and forty woodcuts. [Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel King Survey]. Government Printing Office, 1880. Washington. Small folio, pp. [x], 201, 40 text woodcuts and 34 tinted plates of fossils with explanatory leaves.

This large paper (11.25 X 14.25 inches) limited issue edition of Marsh’s major work on toothed birds is in the original green cloth with gilt titles. The binding is tight and very clean with bright gilt titles. Very minor scuffing to binding corners. The text and all plates are clean and bright. A minor original binder’s error wrinkle is on the upper outer part of the rear paste down.
The text pages are printed on thick paper with extra-wide margins. The plates, including a full-size restoration of Ichthyornis and a half-size reconstruction of Hesperornis. are tinted and are also on thick, heavy paper with many plates folding.

O. C. Marsh (1831-1899) was an American paleontologist who made extensive scientific explorations of the American west in search of extinct North American vertebrates. He is best remembered for his fierce rivalry with another famous vertebrate paleontologist, Edward D. Cope.
Marsh was born and died in New Haven, CT. where he spent his entire career at Yale University as the first professor of vertebrate paleontology.
Credited with the discovery of more than a thousand fossil vertebrates and the description of at least 500 more, Marsh published major works on toothed birds, gigantic horned mammals, and North American dinosaurs.
In his work “Odontornithes”, Marsh describes the first known toothed birds and proves the reptilian ancestry of that class. The text provides detailed descriptions of the skeletons of five species of toothed birds. These descriptions are based on different specimens of Hesperornis, and  Ichthyornis collected from the Cretaceous Niobrara chalk of western Kansas.
The text pages are printed on thick paper with extra-wide margins. The plates, including a full-size restoration of Ichthyornis and a half-size reconstruction of Hesperornis. are tinted and are also on thick, heavy paper; many plates are folding. The spectacular Hesperornis plate unfolds to 27 by 20.5 inches. Marsh's descriptions of these extinct vertebrates, revealing that the ancestors of modern birds had teeth, were an important contribution to the broadening of evolutionary understanding