162 ON FOSSILS FROM NEW ZEALAND 
On the whole, therefore, the fossil is less like Sphenzscus than 
Ludvptes. 
In view of the resemblances and differences which I have pointed 
out, I cannot regard the fossil bone as a part of a Penguin belonging 
to any known genus ; and I therefore propose to institute the new 
genus Paleeudyptes for it. The present species may be termed 
P. antarcticus. 
This is not the first time that the remains of the Penguin have 
been found fossil, Dr. Mantell having briefly alluded to their occur- 
rence in his paper “On the Remains of Birds from New Zealand,” 
published in the Journal of this Society in 1850; but, so far as 
I know, no particular description of such fossils has hitherto been 
given. 
The bone which I have described was found by a native in the 
limestone! of Kakaunui, and was brought to Mr. Mantell imbedded 
to some extent in a matrix which was readily recognizable as that 
particular limestone. Mr. Mantell informs me that the Kakaunui 
limestone is overlain by a mass of blue clay, that upon the blue clay 
is superimposed a bed containing freshwater shells, and that upon 
this, again, lies the alluvium in which the remains of the Denornzs are 
found,—the last, in Mr. Mantell’s opinion, having unquestionably 
coexisted with, and been killed and eaten by man. 
The marine shells contained in the blue clay and in the limestone 
are different from those now living in the seas of New Zealand. It 
would appear, therefore, that the Kakaunui Limestone is at least of 
Pliocene age, if not, as Mr. Mantell suspects, much older. 
Whatever be the precise age of the fossil, it is not a little remark- 
able to find in strata of such antiquity the remains of a bird the 
whole of whose congeners are at present absolutely confined to the 
Southern Hemisphere, and therefore, in a broad sense, to the same 
great distributional area. If the strata be of Pliocene age, the fact is 
in accordance with the relations which have been observed to obtain 
between the recent and Pliocene fauna of the Northern Hemisphere. 
On the other hand, the little that is at present known respecting the 
distribution of Birds in time is not inconsistent with the ascription of 
a far greater antiquity to a genus as closely allied as Paleeudyptes to 
those which now enist. 
Fossil Cetacean—The Cetacean bone (figs. 3 and 4) is a left 
humerus, which was obtained at Parimoa, about five miles north of 
Kakaunui, from the blue clay above referred to, and is therefore of 
more recent date than the Paleeudyptes. It measures 3} inches in 
1 See (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. for August 1850, vol. vi. 
