

312 Prof. Hitchcock on Ichnolithology , or Fossil Footmarks. 



While on this subject, may I be allowed to delay long enough 

 to state one or two very curious facts, that have lately fallen un- 

 der my notice, as related by Capts. Cook and Flinders. They 

 relate to some nests of birds discovered by these voyagers on the 

 coast of New Holland, of enormous size. I have long been in the 

 habit in my lectures, of reading these accounts as a part of the 

 poetry of footmarks, in connection with others manifestly fabulous. 

 But since the history of the Dinornis has appeared, the question 

 has arisen in my mind, whether the statements of these navigators 

 must not be true. The nest seen by Capt. Cook, was on a small 

 island in about 14° south latitude, on the northeast coast of New 

 Holland. In his visit to the island he was accompanied by Sir 

 Joseph Banks. " At two in the afternoon," says he, " there being 

 no hopes of clear weather, we set out from Lizard Island to return 

 to the ship, and in our way landed upon the low sandy island with 

 trees upon it, which we had remarked in our going out. Upon 

 this island we saw an incredible number of birds, chiefly sea fowl. 



"W 



which we 



killed ; and the nest of some other bird, we knew not what, of a 

 most enormous size : it was built with sticks upon the ground, and 

 was no less than six and twenty feet in circumference and two 

 feet eight inches high." — " To this spot we gave the name of 

 Eagle Island," &c * 



Similar nests were found by Capt. Flinders in King George's 

 Bay, on the southeast coast of New Holland, in about 35° south 



received from the missionaries. They have enabled him to establish five distii> c 



species; the largest of which, ten feet high, he calls Dinornis giganteus. i > e 

 smallest was four feet high, called the D. didiformis. " These data," says the ab- 

 stract, " showed that the Irifid foot-print of the D. giganteus must have excee e 

 in size the Ornithichnites giganteus and O. ingens of Prof. Hitchcock, and that t e 

 Dinornis didiformis must have left impressions as large as those called Ornithic m 

 tuberosus. The author warned his hearers against inferring identity of s P ec ' eS ' n ° d 

 even genus, between the extinct Struthionida; of the alluvium of New Zealand, an^ 

 those of the Trias of North America, on account of correspondence of size an^ 

 number of toes, which the modern genera Casuarius, Rhea, «fcc. proved to e i 

 sufficient grounds." It seems then, that Mr. Owen regards the footmarks ol j* 

 country as clearly referrible to the family Struthionidse ; and this probably ^ 

 specific an account of the authors of the footmarks as will ever be attained, 

 could have imagined that light, on such a subject, could have come from New _ 

 land ; and that too, as a fruit of missionary labor ! Truly there is a web o 

 mony uniting all the parts of this world's history. . -Ig. 



* Cook's first voyage in Kerr's Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 



p. 318. 



