6 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



Dinornis. Abundant testimony has been adduced to show that the extinction of that 

 remarkable bird has been brought about by the earlier aboriginal inhabitants of the 

 island group within comparatively recent times. The bones of Dromornis, a form 

 very nearly related to the New Zealand Dinornis, if not those of this identical generic 

 type, have been found in the fossil state in the Darling Down deposits of the 

 Australian Continent ; as also the remains of a type, Metapteryac bifrons, most closely 

 allied to the New Zealand Apteryx.* 



In South America various species of the Rhoea, or so-called American Ostrich, 

 now alone survive as representatives of the Struthious order. Several distinct types 

 belonging to the same group have, however, as in the case of the allies of the 

 Marsupial mammal Hyracodon, been recently discovered in the tertiary deposits of 

 Patagonia. In like manner in the African Continent, the typical Ostrich, Struthio 

 camelus, is the sole survivor of a number of allied forms that probably populated 

 that and contiguous areas of the earth's surface at an earlier geological epoch. 



Among recent references to other bird types which, in addition to the Struthionidte, 

 have yielded evidence in support of the hypothesis of a widely extending Antarctic 

 Continent, Mr. H. O. Forbes' very interesting paper, "The Chatham Islands and their 

 relation to a former Antarctic Continent" (Proceedings of the Royal Geographical 

 Society, Vol. III., part 4, 1893), is specially worthy of mention. In this communication 

 some very remarkable data are given concerning the large flightless member of the Rail 

 or Wood-hen family, Aphanapteryx, which inhabited the Island of Mauritius, contempo- 

 raneously with the Dodo, down to about two hundred years ago. Quite recently, 

 following up the clue afforded by bones transmitted to him from the Chatham Islands, 

 500 miles east of New Zealand, Mr. Forbes obtained further material that fully 

 established the comparatively recent existence there of a species almost indistinguish- 

 able from the Mauritian form. The same deposits in the Chatham Islands also yielded 

 Mr. Forbes remains of several other types identical with existing New Zealand species, 

 including the sheep-destroying Kea, or Mountain Parrot, two hawks, an owl, and the 

 remarkable Tuatara lizard, Sphenodon (Hatteria) punctatus. Whilst none of these types 

 possess a direct Australasian association, their record as factors in the composition of 

 a previously continuous land connection between two now widely separated countries 

 in the southern ocean is of high significance. 



There remain yet a few familiar Australian birds that are worthy of notice 



* C. de Vis, Proc. Linn. Soc., New South Wales. Vol. VI., Sec. II., 1891. 



