Anniversary Address. 39 



Island and tlie Isle of Pines), I may mention an announcement 

 made by Professor Owen about three months ago, that he had 

 received from Queensland with the remains of Diprotodon ( a 

 Pleistocene animal) fragments of a crocodile, similarly fossilised, 

 which he has dete;cmined to be identical with the species of that 

 animal still existing in the Queensland rivers — a fact similar to 

 the fresh- water shells of living species attached to the Diprotodon 

 bones. Crocodile's teeth similarly fossilised I sent home to 

 Professor Huxley some years since, collected from the 

 neighbourhood of Peak Downs, by Mr. A. Grregory. 



As to Howe's Island Dr. Macdonald has shown that the coral 

 sandstone has undergone an elevation in the middle of the island, 

 producing a saddle-formed ridge distinct from the lower horizontal 

 beds of the same rock which was probably produced by a 

 paroxysmal heaving similar to that which I pointed out must have 

 been the case in Lifu. 



During the last year, also, I was enabled to announce in the 

 local papers and in the Greological Magazine (VI. 383), the 

 important fact that a femur of a bird allied to, if not incidental 

 with the Dinornis or ancient Moa of New Zealand, has been 

 disinterred from the depth of upwards of 180 feet in drift and 

 under lacustrine deposits, on Peak Downs, in Queensland, thus 

 proving another link in the chain of evidence to show that all 

 through the southern lands in the Eastern hemisphere flightless 

 birds have existed, of which a living bird in Howe's Island is 

 another example. 



And if it be true that the New Zealand Moa is still living ( or 

 is only recently become extinct), we have a similar fact to that 

 illustrated by the occurrence of the living and fossilised Bulimi 

 before-mentioned. 



The Bulimi in the Pacific Islands appear to be as distinct in 

 species as are the flightless birds in genera and orders between 

 New Zealand, Bourbon, and Madagascar ; and now we have the 

 gap somewhat filled up by the Peak Downs bird, which is an 

 ancient example of what we have in the Emeu of this colony, the 

 Cassowary of the Solomon Isles, and the Ostrich of Africa, so 

 that, as before said, there is, despite the differences, an apparent 



