PAPERS READ. 



ON DINORNIS (1) QUEENSLANDLE. 



By Captain F. W. Hutton, F.R.S., Hon. Mem. L.S. of N.S.W., 

 Curator of the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch. 



In the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland for 

 1884, Mr. C. W. De Vis has described a struthious femur, found 

 at King's Creek, Darling Downs, under the name of Dinornis 

 Queenslandice, and says that it '' agrees almost exactly with the 

 femurs of D. crassus and D. elei:)hantoiyusr Mr. R. Etheridge, 

 junr., has also expressed his opinion that "there is a close resem- 

 blance between this bone and the femur of Dinornis.^^* A few 

 months ago Mr. De Vis was kind enough to send a cast of this 

 specimen to the Canterbury Museum as an exchange, and a careful 

 examination of it has convinced me that it is quite distinct from 

 the femora of the New Zealand Moas and cannot be included in 

 any of our genera. It is, therefore, necessary for me to state my 

 reasons for disagreeing with the two distinguished palaeontologists 

 just mentioned. 



The specimen consists of the proximal end of a left femur, 

 about the size of that of Euryajyteryx pondeo'osa, but, being 

 broken, the fragment is now only between four and four and 

 a-half inches in length. Also the proximal surface has been worn 

 down nearly to the level of the middle articular surface, feo 

 that both the trochanterial articular surface and the upper side of 

 the head have gone. It is therefore impossible to say whether 

 the trochanter rose higher than the head, a feature which is so 

 characteristic of the femora of the Moas. But even now the 

 characters left are quite sufficient to distinguish the fragment 

 from the femur of any New Zealand bird. 



* Geology of Queensland, Jack and Etheridge, Vol. 1. p. 626. 



