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XXVI. — Description of the Remains of a Bird, Tortoise, and Lizard from 



the Chalk of Kent. 



By RICHARD OWEN, Esq., F.G.S. 



[Read April 29, 1840.] 



Plate XXXIX. 



Description of the Remains of a Bird from the Chalk, PI. XXXIX. fig. 1 and 2. 



X HE three portions of fossil bone to be first noticed in this paper were obtained 

 by the Earl of Enniskillen from the chalk near Maidstone, and were recognised 

 by his Lordship and Dr. Buckland to belong to a species of bird. The largest 

 portion is the shaft of a long bone, fig. 1, and is nine inches in length, with one 

 extremity mutilated, but nearly entire, and the other broken off. The extremity is 

 expanded ; the rest of the shaft of the bone preserves a pretty regular and uniform 

 size, and is slightly bent. It is unequally three-sided, with the sides flat and the 

 angles rounded off, fig. 1 a, and measures two inches and a half in circumference. 



It differs from the femur of any known bird in the proportion of its length as 

 compared with its breadth, and from the tibia or metatarsal bone in its trihedral 

 figure and the flatness of the sides, none of which are longitudinally grooved. It 

 resembles most the humerus of the Albatross, both in its form, proportions, and 

 size, but differs therefrom in the more marked angles which bound the three 

 sides. The expanded extremity likewise resembles the distal end of the humerus 

 of the Albatross, but is too much mutilated to allow of the exact amount of simi- 

 larity to be determined. 



On the supposition that this fragment of bone is the shaft of the humerus, its 

 length and comparative straightness would prove it to have belonged to one of the 

 longipennate natatorial birds, equalling in size the Albatross. 



The form of the bone might warrant the supposition that it was the distal por- 

 tion of a radius ; but this idea can only be entertained by supposing the fossil 

 bird to have been of gigantic dimensions, almost realizing the fabulous ' Roc ' of 

 Arabian romance ; and the other two portions of bone associated with it, and most 

 probably parts of the same bird, render this last supposition still less probable. 



These portions, fig. 2, both belong to the distal end of the tibia, the pecuharly 

 well-marked trochlear extremity of which is sufficiently preserved, although crushed. 

 Their relative size to the preceding bone, on the supposition that it is the hu- 



