Reviews — A Gigantic Eocene Bird. 469 



narrowed but not radically altered. A thorough reformation of 

 petrographic system is urgently called for, and it is felt that the 

 scheme now presented affords a great increase of precision and 

 significance at the cost of the smallest possible rearrangement of 

 ideas. I do not wish to compare this system more closely than 

 I have already done with those of Iddings and Holmes, but it is my 

 hope that English-speaking penologists will awaken to the necessity 

 of themselves testing these and any other propositions that may be 

 forthcoming, and of coming to some agreement regarding the exact 

 meaning of the terms they use. There is room for wide differences 

 of opinion, but " the dust of controversy — what is it but the falsehood 

 flying off?" 



E,E!"VIE!"Vs7"S. 



I. — A. Gigantic Eocene Bird. 



The Skeleton op Diatryiia, a Gigantic Bird from the Lower 

 Eocene of Wyoming. By W. D. Matthew and Walter 

 Granger. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xxxvii, pp. 307-26, 

 pis. xx-xxxiii, 1917. 



SO long ago as 1874 Professor Cope gave an account of some 

 fragmentary remains of a very large bird from the Lower 

 Eocene of New Mexico, referring it to a new genus and species 

 under the name Diatryma gigantea. Since that time a few additional 

 fragments have been described by various writers, but it was not 

 until last year that the discovery of the greater part of a skeleton in 

 the Bighorn basin of Wyoming made it possible to get any clear idea 

 of the structure of this remarkable creature. This specimen has 

 now been described and figured and its affinities discussed by 

 Messrs. Matthew and Granger in the memoir referred to above. 



Diatryma is now shown to have been a ground bird of great size, 

 standing some 7 feet in height and possessing a relatively very 

 large head and vestigial wings. It was not a " Batite" in the usuaL 

 sense of the word, but like Phororhacos, to which it has much 

 superficial resemblance, was a highly modified Carinate, most of its 

 peculiarities resulting from its loss of the power of flight. The 

 skull, as in Phororhacos, is of extraordinary size, measuring about 

 17 inches in length and being largely made up of a great compressed 

 beak 9 inches long by 6£ high. The tip of the beak is not decurved 

 as in Phororhacos, and the small sharply defined nostrils are situated 

 rather nearer the ventral than the dorsal border of the beak and some 

 2 inches in front of the orbit, which seems to have been incomplete 

 below. The supra-temporal fenestra is closed below by the union of 

 the postorbital with the squamosal. The quadrate has a single 

 transversely expanded head with two imperfectly separated facets for 

 articulation with the squamosal. The jugal is stout and its anterior 

 end unites with the maxilla much above its ventral border. The 

 vertebras are short but massive, especially in the cervical region. 

 The ribs are wide and thin, with little or no trace of uncinate 



