418 CLASS XVI. 



this bird surpasses all species now living in size, and was known in most 

 ancient times (Job xxxix. 13 — 18); it i-uns with great speed against the 

 wind, and lives together in troops, which on the heights are sometimes 

 very numerous, but on the plains, and especially during the breeding 

 season, only consist of four or five in company, namely a cock and the rest 

 hens. These hens living in society lay their eggs in the same nest, or 

 rather in a round hole on the ground. Around it they raise with their 

 feet a kind of mound, against which the outer circle of their eggs rests. 

 They continue to lay until the hole is full, which requires eighty eggs. 

 After this they still lay a few eggs round the nest, as food for the young 

 birds, when they have left the shell. The old birds themselves break the 

 eggs for them one after the other, and with this nutritious supply soon 

 bring them so forward, that they are in a condition to seek their food 

 abroad for themselves. By day the females relieve one another in brood- 

 ing, or perhaps desert the nest and leave the eggs to the sun's warmth. 

 By night the male broods and wards off the jackals and other beasts of 

 prey that are in eager search for the eggs. An ostrich-egg commonly 

 weighs three pounds, and is considered to equal twenty-four hen's eggs. 

 (Lichtenstein's Reisen im sUdl, Africa, 11. s. 41 — 45.) 



To this family also are referred the bones of large extinct birds 

 from New Zealand, which belong to different species, of which 

 some had three toes, others four, like Apteryx. Owen distinguishes 

 the following two genera of them, Dinornis and Palapteryx, to 

 which he has since added Aptoi'nis, also with four toes. 



Compare Owen Transact, of the Zool. Soc. iii. pp. 22 — 32, PI. 3 (1842), 

 PP- 235—273, PI- 18—30 (1845), PP- 307—338, PI. 38—50, PP- 345—372, 

 PI. 52 — 56 (1849), IV. pp. 1—20, PI. 1—4 (1850), pp. 59—68, PI. 23, -24 

 (1852). 



Amongst the natives there are traditions of large birds, and some voyagers 

 think it not improbable that these birds are not entirely extinct. The bones 

 are certainly of very recent origin ; they are found in alluvial soil and in 

 the beds of rivers. 



Family XI. Alectorides s. Palamedeince. Bill short, some- 

 what thick, vaulted, compressed, with tip of upper mandible bent, 

 produced beyond the lower. Nostrils oval, pervious. Tarsi thick, 

 reticulate with hexagonal scales. Feet tetradactylous, with toes 

 strong, long, the anterior conjoined at the base by membrane, and 

 hallux insistent. Wings double-spurred. 



Palamedea L. (Characters of the family those of the single 

 genus. Wings ample, with first two quills shorter, third and fourth 

 longest of all.) 



Although these birds have on the one hand a conformity with 

 Psoj)hia and Dicholojnis, on the other with Parra and still more 



