RE: Sam Welles and the history of an idea

["Stewart, Dwight" <Dwight.Stewart@VLSI.com>]

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Mickey P. Rowe [SMTP:mrowe@indiana.edu]
        Sent:   Tuesday, February 16, 1999 10:34 PM
        To:     dinosaur@usc.edu
        Subject:        Sam Welles and the history of an idea


        I suspect many of you will be surprised (since I was) to find that
the
        following paragraph was written in 1959:

          Most paleontologists believed then as they do now, that birds
          descended from some line of small, light dinosaurs.  These
dinosaurs
          might have found it convenient to live in the trees. (Why not?
          There are tree lizards, tree toads and tree snakes.)  It is
thought
          that they learned to glide a little in jumping from branch to
          branch.  In time they could have learned to fly from tree to tree.
          At the same time, their scales may have become lighter, gradually
          fraying around the edges and finally developing into feathers.  No
          one knows whether it happened that way.  That is simply the most
          reasonable explanation suggested so far.

        Mickey Rowe     ( <mailto:mrowe@indiana.edu> mrowe@indiana.edu)

        @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

        Not totally surprised.  There was something lurking in my cobwebs
about an article from the 1960s regarding a dinosaur/bird link.  BUT - I
couldn't place it.  Perhaps this was it?  But this article you site makes
the dino/bird link sound as thought it were in serious discussion in 1959,
which is fascinating.
        Perhaps our "view" of dinosaurs has cycled?  It's certainly
"evolved". :-)

        Cheers;
        Dwight