Zoological Affinities 0/ Aphanapteryx. 271 



sternum was still less carinate than in that bird*, and that the 

 furcula either did not exist, or was reduced to a styliform state. 

 We may hope that new researches to be made by Mr. Edward 

 Newton in Mauritius will bring to our knowledge some of these 

 interesting portions. 



Herr von Frauenfeld has proposed to regard the bird of which 

 we are treating as the type of a new generic division, and gives 

 it the name of Aphanaptenjx imperialis. Whether this name 

 may be retained, and whether other authors have not spoken of 

 this vanished ornithological form, are questions which we have 

 now to examine. Several naturalists had already tried to in- 

 terpret zoologically the imperfect descriptions and figures left 

 by travellers who visited the Mascarene Islands towards the end 

 of the sixteenth and in the seventeenth centuries; and each of 

 the birds of which they have been able to suspect the existence 

 had already received at least one peculiar name, even when its 

 zoological relations were altogether unknown. Thus Mons. de 

 Selys-Longchamps has united all these doubtful species in one 

 and the same generic division, to which he has applied the 

 name of Apterornis\. 



The bird figured by Van den Broecke (fig. 1) is evidently that 

 which Cauche called the Poule rouge au bee de Becasse, and it 

 seems to me that we may identify them with almost absolute 

 certainty with the Aphanapteryx imperialis. But ought one on 

 that account to replace this generic name by that of Apterornis ? 

 I think not; for the celebrated Belgian naturalist has formed 

 this last genus out of very heterogeneous elements, and the 

 characters which he assigns to it are besides vague, and could 

 be applied (as actually is the case) to birds belonging to very 

 different groups. 



"The genus Apterornis" says this author, "differs remark- 

 ably from the two preceding \_Didus and Pezophaps'] by its long 

 bill, somewhat resembling that of the Woodcocks, but larger. 

 This bill in appearance recalls that of Apteryx. These birds 

 were mounted on long legs, ran fast, and differed more from 



* Prof. Owen has given a figure of tins in his '■ Anatomy of Vertebrates ' 

 (vol. ii. p. 21). 

 t [liBvue Zoologique, 1848, p. 293. — Teansl.]. 



