172 
The first evidence of the former existence of these birds in 
Australia appears to have been in 1836, when ‘Sir Thomas 
Mitchell, F.G.S., Surveyor-General of Australia, discovered in 
the breccia-cave of Wellington Valley a femur,” (13 inches in 
length), ‘wanting the lower end, having the lower ends muti- 
lated, and encrusted with the red stalagmite of the cave, which 
I determined to belong to a large bird, probably, from its size, 
struthious or brevipennate, but not presenting characters which, 
at that time, justified me in suggesting closer aftinities.”* This 
femur is figured in Mitchell’s work.+ 
In 1865 or 1866 (the alternative dates are given because both 
appear in two different notices by the author), at Penola, South 
Australia, the Rev. J. E. Tenison Woods came into possession of 
“two tibias and two tarso-metatarsal bones of some extinct and 
very large bird.” 
There is a further discrepancy in Mr. Woods’ notices of the 
discovery in respect of the position in which the bones were 
found, for, in one place, he states that they were found “in 
sinking a well,”’|| and, in another, that they were found “near 
a native well.”§ 
In a subsequent reference |Mr. Woods provisionally proposed 
the name of Dromaius australis for this bird. 
An important part of Mr. Woods’s statements concerning it is 
the expression of his belief in its contemporaneity with man. He 
says in the first-mentioned notice that “It is certainly quite extinct, 
but appears to have been contemporaneous with the natives, for 
these bones are marked with old scars, one of which must certainly 
have been inflicted by a sharper instrument than any in the 
possession of the natives at present ; there were, however, frag- 
ments of flint buried with the bones, and a native well about 50 
yards away.” 
We have not been able to examine these bones, nor even do we 
know what has become of them. Perhaps they are among those 
fossils which, we understand, lie hidden in obscurity in the 
Penola Institute, and we propose to investigate the question. If, 
however, the statement of Mr. Woods concerning the contempo- 
raneity of the bones with man can be substantiated it is one of 
* On Dinornis, Trans. Zool. Soe., Owen vol. VIII., p. 381; also Extinct 
wingless birds of New Zealand ( Dromornis australis). Appendix, p. 1. 
+ Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, 1838, vol. IL., 
pl. 32, figs. 12 and 13 ; 1839 ed. pl. 51. 
+ Report on the Geology and Mineralogy of the South-Eastern District of 
South Australia by the Rev. J. E. Tenison Woods, p. 7. 
\| Ibid. 
§ Nat. History of New South Wales—An Essay, p. 27 (quoted from 
Etheridge, op. cit). ; 
‘' Proc. Linn. Soc., N.S.W., 1883, VII., p. 387. 
