Remains of an extinct gigantic Bird. 325 



was his intention merely to give a very short extract of what 

 others already had communicated. At the same time it 

 seems that he had before him only Gervais's article in the 

 ' Institute and the few words which occur in Lund's letter in 

 the ' Annales des Sciences Naturelles/ but that he did not 

 know, or did not use, the latter's communication in the ' Pro- 

 ceedings of the Danish Royal Society of Sciences/ 1840-1841. 

 However this may be, no remains of any Opisthocomus are 

 mentioned in either of these places ; and it must doubtless be 

 struck out from the list of fossil birds found in the Brazilian 

 caves, as we can scarcely doubt that it has found a place in 

 Wallace's work only by some misunderstanding or slip of 

 memory. 



So far as I am aware, no further information concerning 

 the fossil birds of Brazil than what I have mentioned has 

 been published * ; and we shall now return to a closer consi- 

 deration of the principal result which Lund deduced from 

 his studies in this department. To a certain extent this result 

 is no doubt true ; there can be no question that the bird- 

 fauna of which the remains exist in the caves, whatever be 

 the proportion of undoubtedly extinct species, had a tho- 

 roughly American character, just as fully as the mammalian 

 fauna which lies buried there; and we are also certainly justi- 

 fied in maintaining that it contained at any rate some species 

 which nowadays occur regularly in other parts of South 

 America only, even if it should happen now and then at 

 intervals of several years that specimens stray into the valley 

 of Velhas t- 



So far it may be said truly that the laws established 

 ''concerning the relation ^^ between the extinct and the 

 extant mammalian fauna "also hold good as regards the class 



* Of course tlie short statements of Lund and Gervais ou the fossi 

 birds of Brazil were soon reproduced in several of the more important 

 contemporory manuals and catalogues ; but to these we need not refer, 



t Lund's collection contains, for instance, several mu'egistered bones of 

 a Chcmna or Palamedea, birds which at present do not occur in the valley 

 of the "Velhas, but, at the most, now and then at intervals of several years 

 stray thither (Talamedea curnuta see Nat. For. Vid. Medd. 1870, p. 22). 



