4 o6 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



tween the Gastornithidce of the Eocene of Europe and the 

 Stereomithes to which that family has been referred, and 

 concludes that though it is not impossible that some affinity 

 between them may exist, its nature is quite uncertain. 



In a notice of the same memoir (15) the present writer 

 has compared the skeleton of Phororhacos with several 

 other types, and a considerable degree of resemblance with 

 the Cariama (Dickolop/ms) was found to exist, particularly 

 in the structure of the metatarsus. If further investigation 

 of the specimens themselves should confirm these observa- 

 tions, the Cariama would appear to be related to these 

 gigantic and highly specialised extinct birds somewhat as 

 the recent Armadillos are to the extinct Glyptodonts. In 

 both cases the recent forms cannot be regarded as direct 

 descendants of the fossil giants, but rather as more gene- 

 ralised descendants from the same common stock, which 

 have escaped extinction both on account of their smaller 

 size, and more particularly, because being less specialised 

 they were less affected by changes in the conditions of life. 



The specimens described by Ameghino have been pur- 

 chased by the Trustees of the British Museum, and many 

 of them may now be seen at the Natural History Museum. 



No papers of importance dealing with upper tertiary 

 birds have appeared within the time to which this review- 

 is limited. 



Quaternary Birds. — During the last three years some 

 important additions to our knowledge of the extinct stru- 

 thious birds of Madagascar, the sEpyornitJiida!, have been 

 made. Until 1893 only the bones of the hind limb and 

 some imperfect vertebrae of these birds were known, and 

 no paper describing new material had appeared since the 

 publication of Milne Edwards and Grandidier's classical 

 memoir in 1870. In 1893 Burckhardt (16) gave a very 

 detailed account of a small collection of /Epyornis remains 

 that had been obtained at Sirabe. in Central Madagascar. 

 This included not only limb bones and vertebrae, but also 

 the greater part of the pelvis and sacrum ; all the specimens 

 were referred to a new species, JE. Hildebrandti, which the 

 author compares with those previously known and with the 



