1226 CLASS AVES. 



Suborder 4. Immanes. — This recently extinct group, like the 

 last, is almost peculiar to New Zealand, and comprises some of the 

 largest known Birds. The beak (fig. 1115) is short; the wings are 

 either very small or totally wanting ; the tibia has a distal bridge 

 over the extensor tendons ; and in some instances there w r as a 

 hallux in the pes. The characters of the skull and pelvis come 

 nearest to those of the next suborder, and the feathers have after- 

 shafts. This group has been divided into the Dinornithidce and 

 Palafiterygida, on account of the absence of the hallux in the 

 former. Although this distinction has been doubted by some 

 writers, who consider that Dinornis had a hallux, it appears to be 



Fig. 1114. — Apteryx australis, New Zealand. 



a valid one. Apart, however, from this point, according to the late 

 Sir J. von Haast, the Palapterygidce were provided with rudi- 

 mentary wings, while in the Dinornithidce those appendages were 

 totally absent. Mr De Vis has described some bird-bones from 

 the Pleistocene of Queensland under the name of Dinoi'nis queens- 

 landice ; this being the only instance in which remains of this group 

 have been recorded elsewhere than in New Zealand. Sir J. von 

 Haast proposes to divide the Palapterygidce into Palapteryx and 

 Ewyafiteryx, and the Dino7-nithidce into Dinornis and Mionornis. 



The first evidence of the existence of this marvellous group was afforded 

 by a fragment of the shaft of one of the bones of the leg brought to Sir 



