BY THOMAS P. LUC AS, >I R C.S . ENG., El« . 



161 



kind margin contain near anal angle two i lack spots: a a; spot 

 small, ir distinctly slightly severed : outer spot very conspicuous, 

 rich black bordered with brick red, a*.d silvered on onter 1 order : 

 marginal line tine black. Cilia smoky grey. Allied to L. 

 pavana, L plato. ike. by character of under markings, and to L. 

 biocellata, L. Felderi, &c by general texture and ha 1 it Towns- 

 ville to Brisbane. 



OX A BONE OF AN EXTINCT EAGLE ; 

 Br c. w. Pe vis. 







In a small collection of fossil bones from King's Creek lately 

 purchased for the National Museum there are three pertaining to 

 birds — a fibula, a humerus derived from one of the Kails, and ti e 

 distal half of a second humerus, the subject of the present notice. 



It is not too much to say that each of the larger groups of 

 birds, for example that of the Perching Birds proper, has in this 

 portion of the skeleton a structure which is on the whole char- 

 acteristic of the group, though single characters of similar im- 

 port are rare. The relative protrusion of the epieondylar tuber- 

 osities, the developement of the ectopic ndvlar border, ihe size ? 

 shape and direction of the condyles themselves, more especially 

 the radial, the extent and depth of the probraehialis insertion 

 on the palmar aspect, the depth of the concavity aneonad of the 

 ulnar condyle, such are the significant features which in the gross 

 enable one to identify a recent or refer a fossil bone to its family 

 with moderate confidence. 



Under this instruction it is not <!itfieult to point out the 

 group to which the present fossil belongs — it is evidently from a 

 diurnal Bird of Prey. 



In its family, Faleonida\ the entepieondylar tuberosity takes 

 the greater share in the expansion of this arthral end of the bone ; 



