256 



ORDERS OF BIRDS. 



are confined to Xorthern Australia, Papua, and the Indian 

 Archipelago ; and the species of A'ptcryx are natives of Xew 

 Zealand. 



Fig. 'M\—Aiitcryx Anstralls. (Gould.) 



As regards the distribution of the Cursor cs in time, it 

 would seem probable that some of the footprints of the 

 American Trias (if ornithic at all) were produced by birds 

 belonging to this group. In the present uncertainty as to the 

 nature of these impressions, the first undoubted appearance 

 of Cursorial Birds is in the Eocene Tertiary, In beds of this 

 age in Britain (the London Clay), we have the remains of 

 Dasornis Londincnsis, a large Struthious bird, with affinities 

 to Dinornis ; and in strata of Eocene age in New Mexico, 

 Prof. Cope records the discovery of Diatryma gigantea, a 

 wingless bird twice the size of the living Ostrich. Gastornis, 

 also Eocene, and sometimes placed in the Cursores, appears 

 to be truly referable to the Natatores. 



In the Miocene and Pliocene Tertiary we have no re- 

 mains of Cursores to notice ; but in the Post-Pliocene period 

 we meet with a number of extinct forms of the order, all of 

 which, so far, have been found in geographical provinces at 

 present tenanted by great wingless birds. The most in- 



