DISCOVERIES IN AVIAN PALAEONTOLOGY. 399 



From the Eocene of New Jersey Marsh (2) has described 

 some fragmentary bones which he considers belonged to a 

 large struthious bird, Barornis, related to Gastornis and 

 Diatryma from the Eocene of Europe and North America 

 respectively. The specimens seem, however, to be too im- 

 perfect to admit of complete certainty as to the affinities of 

 this bird, but it may be remarked that the " struthious " 

 nature of Gastornis is very doubtful, though it was pro- 

 bably " ratite ' : in the morphological sense of that much 

 abused term. 



A portion of a metatarsus obtained in Vancouver Island 

 from a deposit of Eocene or, at latest, Oligocene age, forms 

 the subject of a memoir by Cope (3). This author, after 

 an exhaustive comparison with recent types, comes to the 

 conclusion that its affinities lie in the direction of the 

 Steganopodes, and that of these Pelecanus is the nearest 

 ally of the extinct form, to which the name Cyphornis 

 magnus has been given. The presence of a large pneumatic 

 foramen on the anterior face of the bone is strongly in favour 

 of this view, and if, like the Pelicans, Cyphornis was 

 capable of flight, it is by far the largest flying bird hitherto 

 recorded. 



A most important addition to our knowledge of the 

 avi-fauna of the earlier tertiary rocks of Europe has recently 

 been made by Professor Milne Edwards, to whom students 

 of this branch of palaeontology are already more deeply 

 indebted than to any other writer. In a paper (4) read at 

 the Ornithological Congress at Buda Pesth, he described a 

 number of bird remains from the well-known deposits of 

 phosphate of lime (Phosphorites) which occur in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Caylus (Lot) in Southern France. The mam- 

 malian fauna of these deposits, described by Filhol and 

 others, is an extremely rich one, and Lydekker has shown 

 that several characteristic members of it occur at Hordwell 

 in Hampshire in strata of Oligocene (Up. Eocene) age. 



The birds now described belong to some seventeen 

 genera, of which ten are new ; these include representatives 

 of several sub-orders. Only the more interesting of the 

 new forms need be noticed here. 



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