NEORNITHES RATITAE CHAP. 
WwW 
ioe) 
green colour, while the surface is covered with granulations 
which give it the appearance of shagreen. They are small for 
the size of the bird, being less than those of the Cassowary. 
The cock performs the duties of incubation, and it is very doubt- 
ful whether the hen ever assists him; the chicks break the shell 
in about eight weeks. The flesh is moderately good for eating, 
and the fat below the skin yields a large quantity of oil. 
The birds are constantly hunted with dogs or shot on account of 
the damage they do to wire fencing and the grass they devour. 
Emeus are easily domesticated, and propagate readily in semi- 
confinement, being perfectly hardy in Britain and elsewhere. 
D. patricius is a fossil species from the Pleistocene of Queens- 
land and New South Wales. YP. gracilipes is another extinct 
Australian form, but Dromornis australis of Queensland may 
indicate a distinct group of Ratitae.’ Dromaeus ater, of Kangaroo 
Island, off the south coast of Austraha, is now extinct, though a 
stuffed skin and a skeleton are in the Paris Museum.” 
IV. APTERYGES. 
The APTERYGES, or Kiwis, have been recently shown to be much 
more nearly related to the Dinornithes than to the remaining 
Ratite forms, and are accordingly placed in close proximity to 
them in the classification here adopted. Professor T. J. Parker 
has, moreover, lately formulated a new system—excluding the 
Aepyornithes, which may commend itself to many persons as a 
further improvement.? In this, the Order Struthiones contains 
the family Struthionidae, and the Rheae the Rheidae; but the 
third Order, upon which the name JMJegistanes, Vieillot, is be- 
stowed, includes two Sub-Orders—Casuariformes, comprising the 
Casuariidae and Dromaeidae, and Apterygiformes, with the Din- 
ornithidae and Apterygidae. In other words, the original stock 
is considered to have produced three Ratite branches only, the 
third of which gives rise to two twigs, each of these separating 
again into two smaller twigs representing the Families. 
Fam. Apterygidae.—These birds are at once distinguished 
’ For an extinct gigantic bird from Callabonna, South Australia, with enormous 
skull (Genyornis newtoni), see Stirling, Nature, 1. 1894, p- 206; Stirling and 
Lietz, Tr. R. Soc. S. Austr., xx. 1896, pp. 171-211. 
2 Cf. Milne-Edwards and Oustalet, Vol. Centenaire Mus. N. H. Paris, 1893, 
pp. 62-67. * Tr. Zool. Soc. London, xiii. 1895, pp. 425-427. 
