384 STRUCTURE AM) CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS 



and doubtfully referable to the group, 1 Phororhacos is the 

 best known, almost the entire skeleton being now in the 

 museum at Buenos Ayres. A convenient summary of AME- 

 GHINO'S work, with criticisms, has lately appeared in the 'Ibis,' 2 

 by Mr. ANDREWS, from the whose paper the information here 

 has been extracted. When first discovered (the anterior por- 

 tion of the lower jaw) the creature was referred to the mam- 

 malia. As with the leg bone of the Dinornis its ornithic 

 nature was doubted, though the lesson afforded by the 

 Dinornis might have tempted naturalists to be bolder than 

 was perhaps reasonable in the forties. The bird was formerly 





FIG. 185. SKULL OF Phororhacos. LATERAL ASPECT. 

 (AFTER ANDREWS.) 



held to be ratite. But LYDEKKER, who examined the qua- 

 drate, found that, as in carinates, it articulated by two heads 

 instead of the one which characterises that bone in the 

 ratites. 3 



The skull of Phororhacos longissimus is two feet in 

 length ; the hooked beak has two or three serrations at the 

 commencement of the hook, which remind one of the Eocene 

 Odontopteryx, in which bird, however (see p. 418), the serra- 

 tions extend along the entire length of both jaws. Seen 

 from above certain resemblances between this skull and that 

 of Phalacrocorax or Plotus will be apparent. ANDREWS 

 thinks that the lacrymal was united with the jugal by a 



1 E.g. Bmntoniis, Dryornis, Pelecyornis. 



2 Jan. 181M3. 



3 Except Apteryx. 



