DISTRIBUTION OF BIRDS. 25 



a bird comes to consume that food ; and as most of them can 

 make their escape into the air, they can venture to seek their 

 food more in the light of day, and in the presence of man, 

 than the wild quadrupeds. 



such a spring, and dives again so instantaneously, that I defy any one at 

 first sight to be sure that it is not a fish leaping for sport." DARWIN. 



Though, as a rule, the proper element of birds is the air, there are 

 many birds still extant whose wings, being in a rudimentary condition, 

 are useless as organs of flight ; and the remains of birds similarly 

 organized, found in a fossil state, are so numerous as to lead us to the 

 conclusion, that our extant wingless species are but the relics of an 

 extensive series of varied forms of birds, which, nevertheless, agreed in 

 this abnormal condition of the wing. 



The extant species, setting, as the great auk, and many penguins, are 

 the ostrich, the cassowary, two species of Rhea, and two, if not three, 

 species of Apteryx in New Zealand. There is reason to believe that a 

 large struthious bird exists in Madagascar; and the fossil eggs, and 

 some of the bones, of an extinct gigantic bird of the ostrich form, have 

 been recently brought from that island to Paris. This bird is the 

 Mpyornis maximus of M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire. Each egg is nearly 

 equal to six eggs of the common ostrich. 



It is but recently that the dodo, the solitaire, and as there is reason 

 to believe, other wingless birds, have been extirpated by the agency of 

 man in the islands of Bourbon, Mauritius, and Rodriguez. With respect 

 to other external forms, it may be observed that the fossil remains of a 

 struthious bird have been found in the Sewalik Hills. (Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 1847, p. 11.) 



New Zealand appears to have been formerly a great nursery for 

 wingless birds. The following species have been described by Professor 

 Owen : 



Gen. DiisroRNis. D. giganteus, D. casuarinus, D. didiformis, D. 

 struthioides, D. curtus, D. otidiformis. 



Gen. APTEKOKNTS. 



Gen. PALAPTERYX, allied to the Rails. P. ingens, P. dromio'ides, 

 P. geranoides. 



Gen. NOTORNIS, one of the Rail family (Rallida). N. Mantelli. 



Whether this last species be yet utterly extinct, is very questionable. 

 Dr. Mantell is in the possession of the stuffed skin of the notornis, pro- 

 cured by Mr. Walter Mantell in New Zealand. The bird was captured 

 alive ; it would be strange should it prove the last of its race. It is a 

 large and beautiful wingless Gallinule, and certainly of extreme rarity. 

 The natives were unacquainted with it. It is most probable that the 

 tridactyle birds, the impressions of whose footsteps occur in the new red 

 sandstone of Connecticut, were brevipinnate. M. 



