THE MOA IN AUSTRALIA. 99 



slender limbed and swifter wingless bird peculiar to the Australian 

 continent." To the bird represented by the fossil Owen gave the 

 name Droruornis, a name significant of his conception of the para- 

 mount affinity displayed by its femur. If with that judgment a 

 succeeding observer finds it impossible to completely harmonize his 

 own conclusion, and says so, it is because in this case compulsion 

 rides roughshod over peril. That the Dromornis bone has important 

 features which relate it to the Emu rather than to the Moa is a 

 position which is unassailable — but that these alone are its 'essential' 

 characters is a postulate and one that has no right to command 

 assent. Essential they are among the Droma?an features of the bone; 

 but of the compound Dromornis bone as a whole they form but a 

 part of the essentials. The absence of the air-duct communicating 

 with the interior of the bone, a characteristic dinornithic feature, seems 

 quite as important as a structural index to habit as the Dromtean set 

 of the head of the bone, and being strictly dinorthic, it is not ' related 

 to the general strength and robustness of the bone' but to its compara- 

 tive solidity. Again the ' dinornithic strength and proportions of the 

 hind-limbs ' is a reminder which should carry more weight than it 

 was probably intended to bear, but is nevertheless but a partial 

 statement of the fact — for it leaves out of consideration the great 

 difference in the relative proportions of the bone under examination. 

 It is not that the bone is altogether larger or smaller in the same 

 ratios of length and breadth but in different ratios — the Dromornis 

 and Dinornis ratio being much the same. The Dromornis femur is 

 but one-third longer than that of the Emu, yet its shaft is twice as 

 thick transversely, and its upper end is more than twice as broad. 

 With such bones the bird would probably have the general appear- 

 ance, the gait and habits of a Moa rather than those of an Emu. In 

 short, Dromornis exhibits at the least an intermediate form between 

 the Moa and Emu, probably a nearer approximation to the former 

 than to the latter. 



After another interval of fifteen years a third dinornithic bone 

 was picked up in King's Creek, on the Darling Downs, by Mr. 

 Daniels, and by him presented with other contemporaneous fossils to 

 the Queensland Museum. This again presents the upper end of a 

 thighbone, but minus the upper part of the great trochanter, which 

 appears to have been shorn off by the abrading action of drift sand 

 while the bone projected from the bed of a watercourse — in other 

 respects it is in excellent preservation. Eepeated comparison of this 

 bone with species of Dinornis, with Dromornis, Casuarius, Drornaeus, 

 Struthio and Ehea has removed from the mind of its describer all 

 doubt of the former existence of the typical Moa in Australia. To 

 him it appears to resemble as closely any one of the femurs from New 

 Zealand as any two of these, specifically different, resemble each 

 other, a view which of course implies the absence from it of features 

 notably present in the Emu bone. The most important of these is 

 one to which reference has already been made. The ' head ' of the 

 bone or that hemispherical projection which fits into the corres- 

 ponding cavity of the hip-bone stands out prominently in the Moas in 

 consequence of the neck behind it being somewhat long and of 

 considerably diminished diameter, whereas in the Emu the neck is 



