152 Transactions of the Society. 



height down to individuals but little bigger than the existing 

 Kiwi or Apteryx. It is quite possible that these great wingless 

 birds, which must have existed in thousands, judging by their 

 remains, once occupied a land area far larger than the existing 

 islands of New Zealand. Of wingless birds on these islands the 

 Apteryx alone survives. 



In the adjacent continent of Australia two species, the Emu 

 and the Cassowary are living, and two other forms named Drom- 

 ornis and Genyornis are extinct. On the island continent of 

 Madagascar, near the coast of Africa, the JEpyomis was once 

 equally abundant, and like the Dinomis in New Zealand was 

 represented by several well-marked species, some of which attained 

 a size as great as that of the Dinomis ; and the eggs which have 

 been very commonly found in the sands of Madagascar, surpass 

 in size those of any bird's egg known, living or extinct. On 

 the neighbouring continent of Africa, the Ostrich still survives. 

 In South America another struthious bird also exists, named the 

 Ehea, and a fossil bird of very great size, the Pliororhachos, from 

 the Tertiary of Patagonia, which was probably as tall as the 

 Dinomis and destitute of the power of flight. 



It is not positively known whether the great series of 

 wingless Birds, the Eatitce or Eaft-breasted Birds, originally 

 belonged to one family or not ; they are now certainly very widely 

 separated on the great Southern land-areas, and if they have 

 sprung from a common ancestor in the past, they afford remarkable 

 evidence of the high antiquity of Birds on the surface of the earth. 

 One wingless bird, the Dodo, found only on the Island of Mauritius, 

 was probably exterminated more than 250 years ago by man. 

 The Dodo was a great wingless ground pigeon, which had lost 

 by disuse the power of flight, and so fell an easy prey to the 

 early Dutch navigators, who devoured them all. The Mascarene 

 Islands were also the ancient home of the Solitaire (Pezohaps) 

 which inhabited the island of Bodiguez, the " weka " or wood-hen 

 (Erythromachus), a great species of crake, and several other birds 

 now quite extinct. 



The Penguins (Spheniscidcc) have fossil representatives in New 

 Zealand and Patagonia. They range at the present day from South 

 America to the Falkland Islands, South Africa, Australia, New 

 Zealand, and most of the Antarctic lands, but are not met with 

 north of the Equator. 



The Great Auk (Alca impennis), though separated from its 

 representatives in the Antarctic, is a corresponding type of fish- 

 eating, diving, wingless birds, in which the wing no longer functions 

 as a wing, but rather as the fore-arm or flipper of an aquatic 

 mammal or reptile : it is, in fact, only used in swimming. Once 

 common on all the Arctic lands, just as the Penguin is at the 

 present day on the Antarctic coasts and islands, it lived around the 



