173 
the greatest importance as affording, so far as we ‘know, the only 
direct evidence of the coexistence of man in Australia with the 
extinct fauna. 
Mr. Woods’ description of the bones is not very clear, but a 
certain interpretation of it lends support to the view that the 
bones in question were those of the bird for which we shall 
propose the generic name Genyornis. 
In 1869, the late Rev. W. B. Clarke, Government Geologist 
of New South Wales, announced, both to the Sydney Morning 
Herald (May 19) and to the Geological Magazine (Vol. VI., 
p. 383), the discovery of a femur (nearly twelve inches in length) 
during the digging of a well at Peak Downs in Queensland. As 
Mr. Etheridge points out there is, in this case also, some dis- 
crepancy in the statements as to the exact position in which the 
bone was found. This femur was determined by Mr. Krefft, 
then Curator of the Australian Museum, to be that of a Dinornis. 
A cast of it, with photographs, was transmitted tc Professor 
Owen who described it in detail and founded on it the genus 
Dromornis ; summarized his conclusions as follows :—‘“I infer 
that in its essential characters this femur resembles more that 
bone in the emu than in. the moa, and that the characters in 
which it more resembles Dinornis are concomitant with, and 
related to, the more general strength and robustness of the bone— 
from which we may infer that the species manifested dinornithic 
strength and proportions of the hind limbs, combined with char- 
acters of closer affinity to the existing smaller, more slender- 
limbed, and swifter wingless bird peculiar to the Australian 
continent.”* 
In 1876, again through the instrumentality of the Rev. W. B. 
Clarke, a fragment of a pelvis of a large bird, including the left 
acetabulum, found at a depth of 200 feet, at the Canadian 
Gold Lead, near Mudgee, N.S.W., was transmitted to Professor 
Owen, who assigned it to Dromornis.t In the same paper he 
describes a portion of a tibia, supposed to have come from a cave 
at Mt. Gambier, South Australia.t This also Professor Owen 
allocated to Dromornis, but remarks ‘one cannot of course state 
confidently that it is a bone of the same species as the mutilated 
femur from the cave of Wellington Valley, or of that of the drift 
at Peak Downs, in Queensland.” We believe that this fragment 
may be assigned to Genyornis. 
* Trans. Zool. Soc. Vol. VIII., p. 383. Extinct wingless birds of New 
Zealand. Appendix, p. 13. 
+ Trans. Zool. Soc., 1877, Vol. X., p. 186. Extinct wingless birds of 
New Zealand. Appendix, p. 6. 
t+ This was presented to the British Museum by the Trustees of the 
Adelaide Museum, 1872.—Brit. Mus. Cat. Fossil Birds, p. 356. 
