1896. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 225 



besides some remarkable remains of extinct Mammalia, the descrip- 

 tions of which will, we hope, be made public immediately. No less 

 than twenty new forms of Rodentia and Insectivora were secured, one 

 of the most singular being a web-footed form of the family Centetidae. 

 Small collections of land Invertebrata were made, and a large series 

 of plants, which latter includes several new orchids. 



The collections made during the Conway Expedition to 

 Spitzbergen have also arrived in London. These include a fairly 

 complete series illustrating the natural history of the island. 

 Mr. Battye obtained skins of most of the species of birds found on 

 the island. Mr. E. J. Garwood and Dr. Gregory, who worked together 

 on the geology, obtained collections from all the known fossiliferous 

 horizons ranging from the Devonian to the Pleistocene. The latter 

 also brought back a collection of plants from the interior, and a general 

 zoological collection. For further remarks on this subject we refer 

 our readers to Dr. Gregory's article in this number on the " Arctic 

 Work of 1896." 



Extinct Birds. 



The collections of Dr. Forsyth Major above referred to have 

 thrown considerable light on the structure of the skeleton of /Epyornis, 

 the extinct struthious bird of Madagascar, long known only from a 

 few leg-bones and vertebras. In a paper, descriptive of the new 

 specimens, lately published in the Ibis (July i8g6), Mr. C. W. 

 Andrews has figured the skull, sternum, and shoulder-girdle for the 

 first time. The skull seems in many respects to resemble that of 

 some of the Dinornithidae, though it is much less depressed ; one 

 very interesting point is the presence on the frontals of numerous deep 

 pits which seem to indicate that in the living bird the head was 

 ornamented with a crest of large feathers. The sternum is a very 

 remarkable structure, being extremely broad in proportion to its 

 length ; it is said to resemble most nearly that of Apfeiyx, but to have 

 undergone still further reduction. In the shoulder girdle, thecoracoid 

 and scapula form a very open angle with one another and are 

 co-ossified as in the other Ratitas. In this portion of the skeleton 

 ^pyornis appears to approach the cassowary, with which, moreover, 

 numerous other points of resemblance have been pointed out by 

 Milne Edwards and Grandidier. The author also describes some 

 small bones which he regards as humeri ; if this determination is 

 correct, the wing would appear to have undergone a somewhat 

 greater reduction in proportion to the size of the bird than in the 

 cassowary. The numerous points of similarity between the 

 iEpyornithidae, Casuariidae, and Dinornithidae are of much interest 

 from the point of view of geographical distribution, but whether they 

 necessarily indicate a former southern land connection between the 

 areas inhabited by these birds, or can be explained as the result of 



