99 



In the'department of newer Tertiary Palaeontology a very important 

 addition has been made to that fauna which immediately preceded the 

 present one. I allude to the determination made by Professor Owen of 

 the former existence of a large wingless bird on this continent, founded 

 on a tibia obtained in the Mount Gambier District. This bone, he 

 writes, determines beyond question the fact of the former existence in 

 Australia of a wingless or flightless bird of the size of Dinornis 

 JMephantopus, but of a genus nearer akin to Casuaiius and Dromarius." 

 It is named Dromonds Australis, and indications of its former extensive 

 range in this continent are a femur obtained at Peak Downs, Queensland, 

 in 1869, a pelvis at Goree, near Mudgee, in 1876, and a femur from the 

 Wellington Valley Caves, N. S. Wales. All these bones and the South 

 Australian tibia are considered by Professor Owen to be parts of the 

 same genus if not species. The first to recognise the affinities of this 

 bird was our hon. member, the Rev. J. E. Tenison Woods, and it 

 redounds to his skill as a comparative anatomist that the opinion he 

 expressed has been corroborated by the greatest living anatomist. The 

 original discovery is recorded in his " Report on the Geology and 

 Mineralogy of the South-East, &c," p. 7, 1866, from which I extract 

 the following : — " In sinking a well on the edge of a swamp fourteen 

 miles N.N.W. of Penola, some bones have been dug up, which were this 

 day (April 25, 1866) recovered by me. They comprise two tibias and 

 two tarso-metatarsal benes, and show them to have belonged to some 

 struthious bird very nearly allied to the emu. . . From the size of the 

 bones it was evidently a larger, heavier, and more clumsy bird. . . . 

 I should propose the provisional name of Dromarius Australis for the 

 bird. It is certainly quite extinct, but appears to have been con- 

 temporaneous with the natives, for these bones are marked with old 

 scars, one of which must certainly have been inflicted by a sharper 

 instrument than any in the possession of the natives at present ; 

 there were, however, fragments of flint buried with the bones, and a 

 native well is distant about fifty yards away." 



Professor Owen's u The Fossil Mammals of Australia" will ever 

 remain a classic work, and is the only source of information regarding 

 the extinct kangaroos, wombats, and their allies which are occasionally 

 met with in the superficial deposits and caves of this province, and 

 of other parte of the continent. 



