Feathered dinosaur hands and feathers, "Archaeopteryx" was quite similar to "Compsognathus". Thus "Archaeopteryx" represents a transitional fossil. In 1868 he published "On the Animals which are most nearly intermediate between Birds and Reptiles", making the case. The first restoration of a feathered dinosaur was Thomas Henry Huxley's depiction in 1876 of a feathered "Compsognathus" to accompany a lecture on the evolution of birds he delivered in New York in which he speculated that the aforementioned dinosaur might have been in possession of feathers. The leading dinosaur expert of the time, Richard Owen, disagreed, claiming "Archaeopteryx" as the first bird outside dinosaur lineage.
Specimens of Archaeopteryx ähnlichen Federn bedeckten "" ("skeleton of an animal covered in similar feathers"). In German, this ambiguity is resolved by the term "Schwinge" which does not necessarily mean a wing used for flying. "Urschwinge" was the favored translation of "Archaeopteryx" among German scholars in the late 19th century. In English, "ancient pinion" offers a rough approximation. Hermann von Meyer learned of the discovery of what would later be known as the London Specimen before he published his analysis of the single "Archaeopteryx" feather. In September 1861 he wrote to the "Neues Jahrbuch" about being informed of the discovery by Friedrich Ernst