448 RESIDUE OF EXTINCT BIRDS OF QUEENSLAND AS YET DETECTED, 



The most interesting feature in its foot is the disproportionate 

 size of the middle toe : this, together with the absence of the 

 arterial perforation, seems to prepare the way for the following 

 bird. 



Measurements. 



D. patricius. £tolS& D ' OracMp&t. 



Trochlear expansion, palmar 



aspect over all 54*5 ... 50 



Width of shaft in a line corre- 

 sponding to proximal end of 

 plantar foramen in living 

 species 40 ... 36-5 ... 34 



Length of mesial trochlea, ante- 

 rior aspect 36 ... 31 ... 28-5 



Length from transverse line of 

 measurement to end of mesial 

 trochlea 37 ... 36 ... 33*5 



Thickness of shaft at middle of 



transverse line 16*5 ... 13 .. 115 



Width of mesial trochlea, over 



all 26-5 ... 26 



Width of same between centres 



of lateral depressions 15 ... 11 ... 12*5 



Fam. APTERYGID.E, gen. et sp. nov. 



From among several hundred specimens forming an amateur's 

 hoard of Nototherian fossils, lately added to those in the writer's 

 charge, three only appertained to the birds of that age. One of 

 these at once admitted itself to be a fragment from the foot of the 

 emu D. patricius, in another was detected a duplicate of the type 

 example of the mound-builder Chosornis, the third came with so 

 peculiar a facies as to baffle recollection and inflame curiosity. A 

 distal half or somewhat less of a tarso-metatarsus, it was imme- 

 diately confronted with each one of a hundred metatarsals supplied 

 by the chief types of the Australian birds now existing, and, failing 



