ee ee a a ee Se ee ea ee 
i lll 
41 
On Dromornis Australis (Owen), a new Fossil Bird of 
Australia. 
By the Rev. W. B. Cuarxe, M.A, F-RS., &. 
[Read before the Royal Society of N.S.W., 6 June, 1877.} 
ovis the year pai a letter of mine appeared in the Sydney Morning 
rald on as at of some interest to Australian naturalists. 
Appen vie: 
A discovery had recently been made of the fossilised femur of 
a bird resting on a block of granite, at a depth of 180 feet in the 
+ 2 gaan beds of Peak Downs, in Queensland, about latitude 22 
S 
This femur was submitted to examination by the Curator of 
the Australian Museum, and was compared by him and myself 
with New Zealand specimens of femora of the genus Dinornis. 
We came to the conclusion that the bone belonged to-a species 
of Moa. Ragen ee No. 1.) 
This w rwards stated by me in a communication to the 
Radtegical imide foal vi, p. 288), in which I dwelt, perhaps 
maturely, on the supposed sees offered by this bone of a 
connection New Zealand and A ia, inasmuch 
th 
hat connection in another light. (See Appendix No.3.) 
Professor Owen, to whom a cast of the bone was sent (the 
original sti ag in the Museum), 
me that it had some characteristics agreeing wit with those of 
Dinornis, but ~— ra led to the re an it did not 
yr to sont ea s, having nearer relation t 
ce that in the uximiethi of the Zoological Society, 
ie ie learned Profesor Kagan a description and figures of the 
no one was better able to make 
mpariso 
rear himself. (See ‘agancillie No. 4.) 
In that memoir he says: “Of the femora of Dinornis, 1 have 
selected that of Din. elephant opus (Transactions Zoological 
Society, vol. iv, P. sa pl. 43, fig. 1) as nearest to the present 
fossil m im regard to length, 13 inches ; the breadth of the shaft is 
the same, or in the largest examples of D. elephantopus exceeds 
y by 2 lines. 
