Dr. H. Woodward — On Wingless Birds. 317 



Cnemiornis (a gigantic goose), New Zealand ; the Aptornis (a Rail), 

 New Zealand ; the Notornis (a Rail), New Zealand. 



Again, a bird may have wings quite useless for the purpose of 

 flight, and yet capable of being used for some other purpose, and so 

 may develops a large keel on the sternum. For example, the Great 

 Auk and the Penguin, although incapable of flight, use their rudi- 

 mentai'y wings most vigorously when swimming in pursuit of flsh, 

 and have a very large keeled breast-bone.^ 



The Hesperornis had a perfectly flat sternum, wholly destitute of 

 a keel, so that, even if it had a rudimentary wing, it was without 

 any function, having no muscles to move it. 



Whatever view we may adopt as to the origin of the Hatitce, it is 

 an undoubted fact that they occur, either recent or fossil, in each of 

 the great regions of the globe. 



This group must therefore be considered to be as old, if not 

 probably more ancient than the Carinatce among the Avian Class. 



For unless we adopt the hypothesis of a separate origin for each 

 family of the Raft-breasted Birds, we must admit that their inability 

 either to fly or to swim, renders their distribution by land, as in- 

 dispensable as in the case of the Mammalia : whereas those birds 

 possessed of the power of flight may have crossed over a portion of 

 old land, on the wing, after that land had become submerged, and so 

 have peopled separate islands and continents. 



Indeed Wallace so explains the habit of those migratoi\y birds 

 that twice annually cross the Channel, and also the Mediterranean 

 Sea, by the theory that they are a part of a group of birds belonging 

 to a much larger ancient land-surface (now no longer continuous), 

 over which these birds moved with the seasons in search of food, 

 from south to north, or from east to west, and vice-versa, and that 

 their modern representatives simply follow the old road, although 

 a part of that road is now under water. 



But we must admit that the Carinatce may justly claim for 

 their remote ancestor the most ancient fossil bird we know at present, 

 viz. the Archceopteryx from the Lithographic Stone of Solenhofen 

 in Bavaria, a stratum of Upper Jurassic age. For although an 

 aberrant form of bird, it possessed the foot ot a true passerine bird, 

 and enjoyed, in a small degree at least, the power of flight ; whereas 

 for the Ratit^ we have no more remote ancestor than Owen's 

 Eocene Dasornis londiniensis, or Cope's Diatryma gigantea from the 

 Eocene of New Mexico. 



It seems pi'obable, however, that some of the footprints on the 

 American Triassic Sandstones may have been produced by Struthious 

 birds, and Cope's discovery of Diatryma gigantea in the Eocene of 

 New Mexico may be followed by the unearthing of more ancient 

 evidence of Ratit^ in North America. 



That the immediate predecessors to Birds were Dinosauria seems 

 highly probable, and this view has been adopted by Professors 

 Huxley, 0. C. Marsh, and many other comparative anatomists. 



1 The Guillemot may be seen at the Zoological Gardens using its wings when 

 swimming in pui-suit of fish. 



