Remains of an extinct gigantic Bird. 323 



Lund had determined more or less accurately 33 fossil species 

 of birds, belonging to 26 genera, mostly such as are still 

 represented in the same region, and of which some are pecu- 

 liar to America, as, for instance, Furnarius, Anabates, Den- 

 drocolaptes, Crypturus, and Rhea. We gather, moreover, 

 that several species agree in a remarkable degree with those 

 now existing, and, finally, that only one of those discovered 

 was wholly different, in other words, unquestionably gene- 

 rically distinct from all birds of the present age, being most 

 likely an extinct species of Illiger's family Alectorides, allied 

 to the Seriema {Cariama), but of the size of the Rhea. As 

 it appears from the unpublished treatise that Lund at that 

 time did not consider that he possessed remains of more than 

 one species of Rhea, we may conclude, though nothing is said 

 about it directly, that this gigantic ^^Alectoride^^ is identical 

 with one of those species of Rhea which he had shortly before 

 alluded to in the ' Annales des Sciences Naturelles.^ 



The principal result which Lund considers himself justified 

 in deducing is this, that all the laws which he had established 

 concerning the relation between the present mammalian 

 fauna of Brazil and that which had last preceded it, held 

 good for the class of birds as well. These two notices are all 

 that Lund published on the subject ; but he continued to 

 direct his attention to the remains of birds in the caves, and 

 when he at last, a few years later, abandoned all further 

 researches in caves, he possessed not only more bones of 

 birds, but also bones of more species, than in 1841. It is 

 not, however, probable that he entered on a thorough inves- 

 tigation of his new finds : the great majority of the bones of 

 birds in his collection are not determined in his autograph 

 catalogue of them ; in many cases even the indication of the 

 eaves where they were found is wanting; and a portion of 

 them have not even been registered. 



Besides Jjund, the late Professor P. Gervais also published 

 a contribution to the knowledge of the fossil birds of Brazil, 

 which, however, is not considerable. In 1844 he placed 

 before the Societe Philomatique of Paris a resume of a 

 work entitled '' Remarques sur les oiseaux fossiles/^ Avliich 



