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The fossil birds of the British Upper Eocene are re‐examined, further species are described, and additional material referred to existing species. Seeley's Macrornis tanaupus appears to be non‐avian. Of the nine species listed by Lydekker (1891), the supposed cormorant, Actiornis anglicus, and the supposed flamingo, Elornis anglicus, appear referable to a single species of ibis under the former name; and Ibidopsis is transferred to the rails. The total number of forms now recognized consists of a diver, a cormorant, two ibises, a flamingo (based on limb shafts and unnamed), a telmabatid, a duck, a probable cathartid vulture, a hawk, an osprey, a rail and four waders. Seven new genera and seven new species are named.

Acid preparation, at the Natural History Museum, London, of a turtle skull and jaw presented to the Museum of Geology, Sandown, Isle of Wight, England, by R. W. Harris in 1931, has revealed extremely derived palatal morphology previously undescribed in turtles. The specimen is described as a new genus and species, Sandownia harrisi, and is superficially similar to certain soft-shelled turtles (family Trionychidae) although the extensive secondary palate and extensive skull roof are previously unknown for this family. Other features of the skull suggest that it is not a trionychid but can be assigned to the Trionychoidea and that its closest affinities are with the members of the Trionychia (Carettochelyidae and Trionychidae). This specimen is one of the oldest known cryptodiran turtles that nests within the living families (the Polycryptodira). It suggests that the deep divergences among the living families of the Cryptodira occurred more than 110 million years ago.

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We review historical approaches to the systematics of Enantiornithes, the dominant birds of the second half of the Mesozoic, and describe the forelimb remains of a new Cretaceous euenantiornithine. This taxon is known on the basis of fossil specimens collected from southern France, Argentina and the United States; such a wide geographical distribution is uncharacteristic for Enantiornithes as most taxa are known from single localities. Fossils from the Massecaps locality close to the village of Cruzy (Hérault, southern France), in combination with elements from New Mexico (USA) and from the Argentine locality of El Brete (Salta Province) testify to the global distribution of large flighted euenantiornithine birds in the Late Cretaceous. We discuss the systematics and taxonomy of additional isolated bones of Enantiornithes that were collected from the Argentine El Brete locality in the 1970s; the presence of these flying birds in Cretaceous rocks on both sides of the equator, in both northern and southern hemispheres, further demonstrates the ubiquity of this avian lineage by the latter stages of the Mesozoic.