1882.] PROF. OWEN ON THE STERNUM OF NOTORNIS. 691 
was founded by Prof. Owen in the year 1848; the skull was fully 
described in the ‘Transactions of the Zoological Society,’ and the 
genus referred to the family Rallide as a close ally of Porphyrio. 
Shortly after he received a femur, a tibia, and a tarso-metatarse of the 
same bird, as well as a sternum which he, at first, erroneously referred 
to Notornis, but afterwards (in 1871) recognized as belonging to 
Aptornis otidiformis”’. 
Far from the genus Nofornis belonging ‘to a totally different 
form,” the acquisition of additional osteological data confirms its 
reference, together with the extinct Aptornis, to the Ralline family. 
Fig. 2. 
Sternum of Notornis mantelli, side view ; nat. size. 
Prof. Parker selects the New-Zealand genera Tribonyx, Porphyrio, 
and Ocydromus for his illustrations of this affinity of Notornis; and 
in regard to the sternum, finds the closest resemblance to it in that of 
Tribonyx : in this “it is of the same proportional length to breadth ;” 
it is shorter relatively than in Porphyrto, but is considerably longer 
than in Ocydromus ; but its breadth, in proportion to the length of 
the trunk, is greater than in any of the three smaller Rallines. 
As in Tribonyx and the flightless “‘ Wood-hens,” the manubrial 
margin of the sternum of Notornis (fig. 1, p. 690, e) does not develop 
1 «Tyansactions of the New-Zealand Institute,’ vol. xiv. 1882, p. 245. 
