Notices of Memoirs — Prof. Owen on Wingless Birds. 81 



intervening depths of from twenty-one to thirty-eight fathoms ; and 

 the latter are fourteen miles west from the Land's End, with depths 

 of thirty-two to forty fathoms between them and the Longships. 

 St. Michael's Mount appears better to accord with the description of 

 Diodorus than any other island on the Cornish coast, on account of, 

 firstly, its vicinity to tin-producing districts ; secondly, the facility 

 with which carts laden with the ore could have reached it, either 

 on the supposition of an elevation of a few feet, or allowing the 

 extension of the sand-bank from the mainland or the existence of a 

 sand spit concealing the isthmus. 



APPENDIX. 



Note A. — A rock near the Land's End bears the name of "the Armed Knight." 

 Though this appellation may have been bestowed on it through a fancied resemblance 

 in outline, the existence of the tradition respecting Trevelyan's adventure appears to 

 furnish a more likely reason for the name. 



Note B. — In Speed's Map of Cornwall, 1610, no dependence can be placed upon the 

 latitudes, as may be seen by placing a tracing of a reduced Ordnance Map of the 

 same scale (about 1 inch to 4 miles) over it, when the Land's End district will be 

 found to occupy entirely different positions scarcely overlapping in any place, and 

 the shape of the Lizard district to be quite dissimilar. 



Another map without date, but probably as old as Speed's, was shown to me by 

 Mr. Parfitt, of the Devon and Exeter Literary Institute ; the same discrepancies were 

 visible in it. 



Now when we find discrepancies of latitude equal to 10', and the shapes of pro- 

 montories entirely misrepresented in maps of their own country produced by 

 geographers 300 years ago, how can we expect to find even as great accuracy in the 

 geographical descriptions of Roman or Greek historians, more especially when 

 relating to coasts with which they must at best have been very slightly acquainted ? 



notices of imcieimioiie&s. 



On the Extinct Wingless Bieds op New Zealand. By Eiohard 

 Owen, C.B., F.B.S., etc. (London : John Van Voorst, 1, 

 Paternoster Bow.) 



BABON CUVIEB, in the " Avertissement " to the First Edition 

 of the 'Becherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles des Quadrupedes,' 1 

 assigns as a reason for reprinting, with additional matter, his 

 " morceaux detaches dans les ' Archives du Museum d'Histoire 

 Naturelle,' " the facility which would thereby be afforded to students 

 of fossil remains in their comparisons with the text and plates of 

 such Work. 



A like motive has led the Author to collect his detached Memoirs 

 on the Fossil Bones of the Birds of New Zealand, which have 

 appeared in successive Parts of the ' Transactions of the Zoological 

 Society of London ' since the year 1838, and to similarly combine 

 them with additional matter and general remarks in the two volumes 

 now issued. 



His purpose, long entertained, was strengthened by the appearance 

 and favourable reception of an excellent and comprehensive Work 

 on the existing Birds of New Zealand, 2 to which the present Volumes 

 may be deemed complementary. 



1 4to. 3 vols., 1812. 



2 'A History of the Birds of New Zealand,' by Walter Lowry Buller, Sc.D., 

 F.L.S., etc. 4to. (London, John Van Voorst, 1872.) 



DECADE II. — VOL. VI. — NO. II. 6 



