GASTORNITHES. 



55 



i.oo_ 



0.60P 



while numerous bones, and fragments of bones, of the latter, have been preserved. 

 Both were found in lower tertiary deposits near Reims, and from the same geological 

 horizon as the typical species, and in 1883 L. Dollo announced a thigh-bone from 

 the same formation in the neighborhood 2.M 

 of Mons, Belgium. Upon these fossils is 

 based the restoration represented in the 

 accompanying cut, in which the shaded 

 portions indicate the parts which have 

 been found. The most unique and re- 

 markable character of the bird is said to 

 be the distinctness in the adult bird of the 

 sutures between the different bones of the 

 skull, since in all other known birds these 

 bones are anchylosed, and the sutures ob- 

 literated. This feature alone justifies the 

 view that Gastornis is a peculiar type of 

 at least ordinal rank, which accordingly has 

 been attributed to it here. On the other 

 hand, we cannot assign it a place very re- 

 mote from the dromaeognathous birds, with 

 which the pelvic remains and the anterior 

 extremities seem to indicate relationship. 

 It may be that here is a representative of 

 the ancestral stock from which flamingos, 

 screamers, and ducks have sprung, or rather 

 a form which takes the same position to the 

 latter forms as do the Crypturi to the Galli- 

 naceous birds. The true position of this type 

 is impossible to make out at present, how- 

 ever, and it has therefore been placed at the Fjo 24 _ Gastorn ^ wan(siit as restored by L . Dollo . 

 end of the series called Dromaeognathae. 



Before closing the chapter of the Dromaeognathous birds we may mention a few 

 fossil remains which seem to belong to this group, the greater abundance of which dur- 

 ing former geological periods is evident. 



Professor Brandt has described a gigantic egg found in an old watercourse on the 

 steppes of southern Russia. It had a capacity of about forty-two hens' eggs, and 

 showed distinct struthious characters. He called the supposed bird Struthiolithus 

 chersonensis. It may have been related to Gastornis. 



The Diatryma giganteum, from the eocene of New Mexico, was described by 

 Professor Cope from a tarsus-metatarsus discovered by himself. " The characters of 

 its proximal extremity resemble in many points those of the order Cursores (repre- 

 sented by the Struthionidae and Dinornis), while those of the distal end are, in the 

 middle and inner trochleae, like those of the Gastornis of the Paris basin. Its size 

 indicates a species with feet twice the bulk of those of the ostrich." The discovery 

 introduces this group of birds to the known faunae of North America recent and 

 extinct, and demonstrates that this continent has not been destitute of the gigantic 

 forms of birds heretofore chiefly found in the faunae of the southern hemisphere. 



LEONHARD STEJNKGER. 



