150 Walter Rothschild. 



Genyornis, and the Dinornilltidae. It is even conceivable that 

 their ancestral forms migrated from the Mediterranean basin or 

 the African continent itself. Till quite recently no fossil Ratitae 

 or fore-runners of Ratitae were known from the mainland of 

 Africa; but we now have two Eocene forms from North Africa 

 of great interest, in fact I may say of enormous interest, for they 

 are the first true Ratite Palaeognathae recorded from the older 

 strata which hitherto have yielded only ancestral forms of a much 

 more generalized type. The first of these was discovered by 

 Dr. C. W. Andrews in the Eocene beds of the Fayoum and 

 consisted of a portion of the Tibio-tarsus of a true Ratite of a size 

 equal to or rather smaller than a true Striithio and exhibiting 

 characters proving it to be an ancestor of both 8truthio and 

 Aepyornis: this he named Eremo pezus eocaenvs. 



The second was discovered by myself and Dr. H a r t e r t 

 on our journey in 1909 in the South Algerian Sahara. 

 Dr. H a r t e r t Avho was collecting specimens a little distance 

 away from our caravan, picked up, among a lot of pieces 

 of egg-shell of the ordinary North African StrutJiio camelus, 

 2 pieces of egg-shell which we at once saw were very strange; they 

 were much thicker than the Ostrich-egg shells, the}^ were almost 

 completely mineralized, and moreover, from their very slight curve, 

 they evidently were pieces of an egg about the size of that of 

 an Aepyornis. On my return home I looked up the history of 

 African fossils and came to the conclusion that these pieces must 

 have belonged to an egg of Eremopezus. However when collecting 

 material for this lecture I handed the pieces to Dr. Andrews 

 and asked him to make a thorough examination of them. After 

 doing this he at once said they could not belong to Ere7nopezus, 

 as that bird was if anything smaller than an existing Ostrich, 

 while my egg-shells belonged to a bird about the size of Aepyornis 

 grandidieri. Dr. Andrews has drawn up a description of the 

 Saharan egg under the name of Psammornis rothschildi which 

 I append to this lecture. I will now proceed to give a list of all 

 the known living and extinct forms of true Ratite Palaeognathae. 



Psammornis rothschildi Andr Eocene Algerian 



Sahara. 



Ere^nopezits eocaenus Andr Eocene Fayoum. 



Struthio haratheodoris Martin Samos Lower Pliocene. 



Siruthio asiaticiis Milne-Edw Pliocene Siwalik Hills. 



Slrnthio cJiersonensis (Brandt) Pliocene S. E. Russia 



& N. E. China. 



The eggshells exhibited as recent Indian Ostrich shells by 

 Mr. Bid well prove on examination to be eggshells of the Somali 

 Ostrich Struthio tìwìyhdophanes, evidently imported from East 

 Africa by Arab traders many years if not centuries ago. 



