17^ NATURAL SCIENCE. March. 1894. 



instances, we may mention many of the Edentates of South America, 

 the Carboniferous Camerate Crinoids, the fish of the Old Red 

 Sandstone, the Cephalopoda with external shells, and the Operculate 

 Corals of the Silurian. The dermal armour of these ancestral 

 Cetaceans may have been a secondarily-acquired character, from 

 which no particular argument as to their relationships can be drawn. 



^PYORNIS. 



Knowledge of yet another group of extinct monsters is rapidly 

 progressing. Recent researches in Madagascar, of som.e of which we 

 gave an account in Natural Science, vol. iii., p. 192, have brought 

 to light many remains of the ^pyorm's, a bird which some suppose to 

 have suggested the Roc of Sindbad the Sailor. Some of these remains 

 have found their v/ay to the British Museum and have been described 

 by Mr. Charles VV. Andrews {Geol. Mag., Jan., 1894). Others have 

 reached Paris and fallen into the hands of Messrs. Milne-Edwards 

 and Grandidier, who, apparently stimulated by the paper of Mr. 

 Andrews, have published an all too brief account in Comptes Rendtis 

 for January 15. Names are here given to no less than four new 

 species, but, though some measurements are published, we have 

 sought in vain for any adequate diagnosis. Moreover, a new 

 genus, Mnllerornis, is proposed for three new species of more slender 

 form than those referred to /Epyornis, but of this "genus " no further 

 definition is attempted. It also appears that no particular bone is 

 taken as the type-specimen, but that names are applied to collections 

 of limb-bones which may or may not belong to the same species. 

 If this kind of thing continues the confusion of nomenclature in 

 the ^pyornithidae will soon put into the shade that already obtaining 

 in the Dinornithidse. Our only remedy is to refuse recognition to all 

 such undescribed "species." There is, however, much of interest 

 in this paper, as it gives, for the first time, a description, though a 

 short one, of the skulls, sternum, and coraco-scapula. The skull is said 

 to be less depressed, longer and narrower than that of Dinornis ; the 

 temporal fossae are deep and narrow, while the basi-sphenoid 

 bears strong basi-pterygoid processes as in other Ratite birds. 

 The mandible is straight and strong, with a long compressed 

 symphysis, hollowed like a spoon. The sternum much resembles that 

 of Aptcryx,hemg a thin, broad, flat plate, with grooves for thecoracoids 

 like those of that bird. The coraco-scapula is much reduced and 

 bears a slight depression for the articulation of a rudimentary humerus. 

 It is to be hoped that we shall not have to wait so long as usual for 

 figures and full descriptions of these important specimens. Meanwhile, 

 it is more clear than ever that, if yEpyornis really is the Roc, then 

 it was Sindbad's imagination and not the bird that flew away with 

 him. 



