24 



rHE MOA IN AUSTRALIA. 



struthious femui, and one sufficiently well preserved to enable 

 Sir Richard Owen to discern its affinities and make it the 

 subject of a memoir in the transactions of the Zoological Society of 

 London for 1873. result of that examination the ancient 



bird of Australia was pronounced to be more nearly akin to the 

 living Emu than to the extinct Moas of New Zealand, to which 

 it ha J been previously referred by the late Mr. Krefft : and 

 the enquiry so encouraged Sir Richard Owen in the opinion 

 which he had long held, namely, that the struthious types of New 

 Zealand had never extended to the adjacent islands, much less to 

 the far away continent of Australia, that he added in a foot-note 

 (Trans. Zool. Soc, vol. viii.,pt.6, 383)"! can now in 1872 repeat with 

 more confidence the remark in my memoir of 18 0, " no remnant 

 of a Dinornis has yet been found in any of the contiguous islands, 

 and I have in vain searched for such in the post-pliocene fossils 

 of Australia." It appears to be beyond dispute that the bone 

 which led Sir Richard Owen to maintain chat the occurrence of a 

 Dinornis in Australia would be so exceptional an extension of 

 the New Zealand fauna as to be looked upon with doubt, does in 

 its external characters more resemble a bone of the Emu, 

 Dromceus, than of the Moa, Dinornis, but, in all diffidence, it may 

 be questioned whether in naming this bird Dromornis, (Emu bird), 

 the describer did not too greatly subordinate the important 

 structural difference between the fossil bone and that of the Emu, 

 the comparative absence of an air chamber in the former, for this 

 certainly points to a lower grade of the whole bird economy, such 

 as obtained in the Moas, but is left behind by the Emus. That 

 the bird was not a Dinornis is quite clear, but that it was 

 so foreign to Dinornis as to make it probable that Dinornis would 

 never be found in Australia is not equally clear. However that 

 may be, the paloeontologist has ever since the discovery of 

 Dromornis been expectant of other low forms of the Struthionidoj 

 among the bird relics of our bone-bearing drifts, since it is hardly 

 probable that so vast an area inhabited at the present time by at 

 least three ostrich-like birds should in older and more prolific 

 days have nurtured but one. It was therefore with more interest 

 than surprise that part of a struthious femur was recognized in 

 a collection of bones from King's Creek, presented to the 

 Queensland Museum by Mr. J. Daniels, late of Pilton. Surprise, 

 however, took the upper hand when, as th2 little adhering matrix 

 was removed from the bone, Dinornine characteristics grew ap- 

 parent. But it is not easy to rid ourselves at once of the pre- 

 conception that a bone such as this is more likely to a be third 



