22 William Davies—Fossil Bird-remains of India. 
compared. The commencement of the condylar ridges, the shape of 
the condyle, the anterior depression, with the condylar tuberosity 
which it contains, are alike in each, and the annexed measurements 
of the more perfect parts of the fossil, and of the corresponding. 
portion of the recent bone, exhibit the same relative proportions, 
and prove it to have belonged to a bird as large, if not actually to 
the same individual, as the preceding fragments. 
Fossil. _ Recent. 
Length of fragment ... : 
S00 556 06 oe Re 
Medial antero-posterior diameter of condyle ae 398 Bre ay SE ZAL 
Anterior transverse diameter at the lateral condylar depressions ... 2°6 ... 2°76 
Antero-posterior diameter of shaft above the condylar tuberosity ... 1:2 1°12 
Transverse diameter at ditto ... 362 306 ee 435 noe LS Tee meeaD 
Circumference of shaft at 43 inches from the distal extremity ... 46 ... 4°6 
At the fractured end of the fossil is seen the medullary cavity, its 
diameter being 0:8 of an inch, the bone having a thickness of 0:3. 
As the fragments of fossil bones above described certainly belong 
to the genus Struthio, they establish the fact, so far as our present 
knowledge extends, that the Ostrich had its early home in Asia, its 
fossil remains not having hitherto been found elsewhere; also, that 
as regards size, the ancient bird was not inferior to its modern 
African congener, and in respect to the form of the bones of the 
limbs is indistinguishable from it. This intimate resemblance tends 
to the inference, if not to the assurance, that the African Ostrich is a 
direct descendant, perhaps slightly modified, as regards the cervical 
vertebrze, of the older Asiatic bird, which, at some remote period, 
impelled by circumstances, migrated from its original home to its 
present habitat. And, whatever the physical changes that neces- 
sitated the migration, it was not accomplished alone; for the Giraffe, 
now confined exclusively to the African continent, had also an 
Asiatic origin, and has left its remains, associated with those of the 
Ostrich, in the same Indian deposits. Referring to the fossil Giraffe, 
Dr. Falconer observes that the “teeth come so near those of the 
existing African species in size and form as to be indistinguishable.” ? 
And with regard to the existing African mammalia, Mr. Wallace, 
commenting upon the former junction of Africa with Asia, says that 
‘all over Africa, but more especially in the east, we have abundance 
of large ungulates and felines, antelopes, giraffes, buffaloes, elephants, 
and rhinoceroses, with lions, leopards, and hyenas, all of types now 
or recently found in Jndia.”* He elsewhere observes that the 
migration was “apparently effected by the way of Syria and the 
shores of the Red Sea,” and that, “by this route the old south © 
Palearctic fauna, indicated by the fossils of Pikermi (Greece), and 
the Siwalik Hills, poured into Africa” (p. 288). 
The phalange referred to by Mr. Lydekker, and which is repre- 
sented on the unpublished plate R (figs. 15, 15a, b, ¢, d), is an 
entire second phalanx of the middle toe of a tridactyle Struthious — 
bird, distinct from either the Emeu or Cassowary ; though approach- 
— 
ing nearer to the latter than to the former, it possesses distinctive — 
* Paleontological Memoirs, vol. i. p. 26. 
* Geographical Distribution of Animals, vol. i. p. 286. 
