Parxer.—On Notornis mantelli. 255 
 coracoid articulation upwards and somewhat inwards, so that ihe two pairs 
of bones form, with the adjacent portions of the sternum and vertebral 
column, a transverse arch or true shoulder « girdle”: in Carinate, on the 
_ other hand, the coracoid passes from the sternum forwards, upwards, and 
_ outwards, and the scapula, from its coracoid end, backwards and upwards. 
_ In the Ratite the bones make no closer an approach to reptiles in this than 
in other characters, the coracoid is still directed upwards and slightly out- 
_ wards, the chief alteration in its position being that it has a slight backward 
| inclination, this being, however, only an extreme development of what 
_ occurs in Notornis and Ocydromus: the scapula also passes upwards and 
_ backwards, and not inwards. Finally, a diminution of the furcula occurs in 
all birds with functionless wings. 
Ina suggestive paper on the phylogeny of Mammals,* Professor Huxley 
_ has brought out the fact that it gives a wholly erroneous notion of the 
pedigree of that class to suppose that either the Marsupials or the Monotremes 
lie in the direct line of descent of the Monodelphia. He points out that 
the ancestors of the Monodelphia—the Metatheria—were probably didel- 
- phous but not marsupial, and that the Marsupialia are to be looked upon 
‘ as an offshoot of the Metatheria, which, while retaining the lower characters 
_ of brain and urinogenitals, and the large pre-pubes, have undergone great 
Specialization in other directions. In the same way Professor Huxley sup- 
_ poses the Monotremata to be a specially modified offshoot of the Prototheria, 
the forerunners of the Metatheria. 
.. lt appears to me that a far juster view of the affinities of the Ratite than 
_ that alluded to above, is to be had by considering them as the greatly 
‘Specialized but degenerate (using that word in the sense in which I have 
8pplied it to Notornis and other flightless birds) descendants of Carinate 
birds. Professor Huxley remarks} that “in all probability the existing 
| Ratite are but the waifs and strays of what was once a very large and im- 
‘portant group.” What I wish to peels 8 p is that this hypothetical 
orn 
fe 
like the mammalian Metatheria, gave rise to two races of descendants: one 
Continuing the direct line of descent—the Carinate—the other arising by a 
