437 



RESIDUE OF THE EXTINCT BIRDS OF QUEENSLAND 

 AS YET DETECTED. 



By C. W. De Vis, M.A., Core. Mem. 



(Plates xxiii. and xxiv.) 



Necrastur, n.g., Falconid^e. 



Proximal end of a right humerus, wanting part of the radial 

 tuberosity and distal portion of the pectoral crest (PI. xxiv., fig. 

 la and 16). 



The guide to the systematic neighbourhood of this fossil is 

 discoverable in the seat of the insertion of the anterior coracoid 

 ligament on the dorsal aspect of the radial tuberosity (fig. la .4). 

 In the great majority of birds the ligament occupies, and is inserted 

 into, some part of a horizontal groove, which is variously modified 

 in length, depth, width, straightness, and parallelism of its sides. 

 In all these respects, singly or together, it may be studied in the 

 Psittaci, Strigidce (mostly), Passeres (mostly), Coracidce, Columbce, 

 Otididce, Grallce, Herodiones, and Anseres. Occasionally it is 

 reduced, as in the Rails, to two short converging walls enclosing 

 a small pit close to the anterior edge of the bone, or to some such 

 remnant of its full development in the Psittaci. In the minority 

 it is merely a more or less irregular depression of variable depth 

 and definition, affording on the whole, so little aid to the investigator 

 that by it alone he could hardly distinguish safely between the 

 eagle and pelican. But happily it assumes in many of the 

 Falconidca a peculiarly distinctive form, one on which fancy 

 bestows a certain crude resemblance to the footstep of a horse 

 trotting on soft clay. This is best exemplified in Haliaettts 

 leucog aster, wherein it may be observed as a subtriangular pit 



