THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. III. 



No. VIII.— AUGUST, 1896. 



ORIGHsTAIj articles. 



I. — Note on the Skeleton of Diaphoraptertx Hawkinsi, Forbes, 



A LARGE EXTINCT RAIL FROM THE CHATHAM ISLANDS. 



By C. W. Andrews, B.Sc, F.G.S., of the British Museum (Natural History). 



(PLATE XII.) 



IT is a well-known fact that many islands in which there is no 

 indigenous mammalian fauna, have heen, and in some cases are 

 still, inhabited by flightless birds, which are usually of considerable 

 size. Mauritius and Rodriguez are good examples of such islands ; 

 in the former the dodo and aphanapteryx, in the latter the solitaire 

 and erythromachus, existed at least as late as the beginning of the 

 seventeenth century, when, owing to their inability to escape from 

 their foes by flight, they fell easy victims to the crews of ships 

 touching at the islands, and also to the various domestic animals, 

 such as dogs, cats, and pigs, introduced by man. 



A notable addition to the ranks of such islands was made in 1892 

 by Dr. H. 0. Forbes, 1 by his discovery of the remains of several 

 forms of flightless birds on the Chatham Islands. This group lies 

 in the South Pacific, about 500 miles east of New Zealand, in about 

 latitude 44° ; it consists of one large island (Wharekauri) and several 

 smaller ones, the geological structure of which indicates that they 

 form part of an old continental area, and are not oceanic islands. 



The birds, as might be expected, belong for the most part to 

 species found also in New Zealand, but such characteristic flightless 

 forms as Aptornis, G'nemiornis, the Dinornithidse, and Apteryx are 

 wanting. Instead of these, however, we find Diaphorapteryx Haw- 

 kinsi, a lar«;e extinct coot (Palaolimnas Chathamensis), and Cabnhis 

 Dieffenbachii. all of which are now extinct, although the only known 

 specimen of the last-named was killed as lately as 1840. Several 

 species, such as Palceocorax moriorum, in which the wings had not 

 undergone reduction, likewise occur in a fossil condition only. The 

 bones are usually found either in the kitchen middens of the 

 aboriginal Morion or in the blown sands round the coast. 



1 Nature, vol. xlv, p. 580. 



DECADE IV. VOL. III. — NO. VIII. 22 



