148 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE GENUS DINORNIS. 
modern struthious characters. "What the mandibles may further prove, time, we will 
hope, may discover. But this I anticipate with confidence, that further acquaintance 
with the osseous structure of Dasornis will show it to be no exception to the flightless 
and terrestrial nature of all other known birds of like hugeness. 
The present evidence of such a bird in so old a tertiary deposit as the London Clay at _ 
once recalled the discovery of the limb-bones of an equally gigantic bird by M. Gaston- 
Planté (tibia) and by Professor Hébert (femur) in the lower conglomerate of the eocene 
plastic clay at Meudon, near Paris. For the conclusions to which the study and comparison 
of these bones led me, I would refer the paleontologist to the Memoir quoted below’, to 
which M. Alphonse Miine-Edwards has done me the honour to refer’. I will only add 
that the main part of the shaft of the fibula of Gastornis has been more recently dis- 
covered in the same formation at Passy, near Paris®, which exhibits as extensive a con- 
nexion with the tibia, and proportions almost as massive and robust as the fibula of 
Dinornis, like which genus, Gastornis will probably prove to be tridactyle and terrestrial. 
It is possible (one cannot venture to say more) that the cranial fragment here described 
may belong to the same genus as the Parisian eocene large bird’. 
1 «On the Affinities of the large Extinct Bird (Gustornis parisiensis, Hébert), indicated by a fossil femur 
and tibia discovered in the lowest eocene formation near Paris.”—Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 
of London, vol. xii. p. 204, pl. 3 (1856). I am glad to find, carefully reperusing this Memoir, that it affords 
no ground for the difference alleged to exist between myself and the accomplished writer of the following 
remarks:—* Je ne puis partager l’opinion de M. Owen relativement aux rapports qui existent entre le Gastornis 
et les oiseaux du groupe des Rallides.”—Alphonse M.-Edwards, Recherches Anatomiques and Paléontologiques 
pour servir 4 l’Histoire des Oiseaux Fossiles de la France, 4to, p. 172. 
> Op. cit. p. 167. % Op. cit. pl. 29. figs. 3 & 4. 
4 In the Memoir quoted by M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, the following ‘ Rapports’ between Gasiornis and 
Dinornis are thus indicated ;—* Interesting, unquestionably, is the median position of the supratendinal bridge 
in Gastornis ; and it would indicate affinities to the Swan and Goose, were not the same bridge equally medianly 
situated in the Gallinule, the Wotornis, the Raven, some Accipitrine birds,” &c. ‘The inclination of the canal 
to the inner side, and the position of the lower outlet to the left of the median plane, in Gastornis, while it is a 
departure from the Anserine type, is an approximation to the Gallinaceous and Dinornithic structures.”— 
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, vol. xii. p. 215. And, again, “ In the aspect of the lower outlet of 
the tendinous canal the Gastornis more resembles the known larger wading and land birds and the Dinornithide 
than it does any aquatic bird.”—Jb. p.216. “The proportions of the tibia, its thickness e. g. in proportion to 
its length, would plainly show that the Parisian eocene bird had more robust and shorter legs than the typical 
waders, and probably was, as other birds of like dimensions, better adapted for terrestrial life.” —J0. p. 216. 
