CHAPTER Xv 
BIRDS 
In THE Deseado beds, birds occur in small numbers, 
Ameghino having described four species. The remains 
are generally found as isolated bones, and it 1s hard to as- 
sociate the separate finds one with another. Beside this 
there are very few birds of the early Tertiary so known, 
as to make separate bones indicate the family or generic 
relationships. 
In the overlying Patagonian beds, a considerable number 
of species have been found, mostly of penguin-like birds, 
the various genera and species being based on the tarso- 
metatarsus. On the upper surface of the Deseado, we 
found several bones of this penguin-like type, but in all 
cases they were washed out, so that I have considered them 
as having come from the Patagonian. 
However, we found eight specimens of birds in place in 
the Deseado, most of which are clearly land birds and 
belong to genera which are closely related to genera of 
the Santa Cruz, especially the two genera Phororhacus 
and Pelecyornis, and of sizes equal to the largest represen- 
tatives of the two genera. 
Phororhacus Ameghino 
Phororhacus Amegh., 1887, Bol. Mus. La Plata, t. 1, p. 24. 
Phororhacus Amegh., 1889, Act. Acad. Nac. Cienc. Cordoba, t. VI, p. 659. 
Phororhacus Amegh., 1895, Bol. Inst. Geog. Argen., t. 15, p. 10 of separate. 
This is a group of large land birds, comparable in size to 
the great moasof New Zealand which apparently arose, flour- 
ished, and died out in South America. In the Santa Cruz 
they were abundant, the best known form being P. zflatus, 
a bird some six feet high; while the largest, P. longissimus, 
15 
