160 ON FOSSILS FROM NEW ZEALAND 
proximal end is on the same level as that of the outer condyle, its. 
distal end extends a quarter of an inch beyond it. 
The transverse excavation of the articular surface is also greater ; 
the articular surface itself extends over ths of a circle, and is nar- 
rower superiorly than inferiorly ; while its inner lip projects a little 
beyond the outer, in front and above. For the rest, the median plane 
of the condyle is parallel with the axis of the bone; and its articular 
surface might be represented by a grooved segment of a cylinder 
whose axis should be perpendicular to the axis of the whole bone. 
Of the third or inner condyle, nothing remains but a rough space 
indicating where it has been broken off. There is an irregularly 
tuberculate area on the upper part of the inner face of the bone, 
which perhaps marks the attachment of a rudimentary inner toe. 
Those acquainted with the osteology of birds will entertain no. 
doubt that this is the tarso-metatarsal bone of an animal of that 
class ; while the short, stout, proportions of the bone and the deep 
grooves, pits, and foramina, which indicate the lines of division of 
the primitively distinct metatarsals, demonstrate that it belonged to 
one of the squamipennate or Penguin tribe. 
Of the Penguins several genera are found in the southern hemi- 
sphere, ranging from New Guinea to within the antarctic circle. The 
proportions of these birds are such, however (the tarso-metatarse 
being always very short in comparison with the length of the body), 
that the bone that I have described in all probability belonged to a 
Penguin of larger dimensions than any living species which have been 
observed, massive as some of these birds are. 
Sir James Ross states that the largest “ Emperor Penguin” (Apée- 
nodytes Forstert, Gray, the largest species of the group) caught during 
his expedition weighed seventy-eight pounds; but he does not give 
its length. Specimens of some of these birds, obtained during the 
voyage of the “Erebus” and “Terror,” are to be seen in the British 
Museum ; but the largest does not stand 3 feet 6 inches high. The 
fine skeleton of an Emperor Penguin in the same collection measures, 
as it is set up, about 2 feet 5 or 6 inches in height ; and I do not 
suppose that the bird to which it belonged could possibly have stood 
more than three feet high. Now the right tarso-metatarse of this. 
skeleton measures only 1} inch in length; so that, in this dimension, 
the fossil is to it as 10:7, or nearly half as long again, and its owner 
might have stood between four and five feet high, supposing that 
the general proportions of the two animals were alike. 
On making a careful comparison of the fossil bone with its homo- 
logues in other Penguins, I found that it differed in many respects. 
