4 
ANNALS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM, No. 6 
SUB-CLASS, CARINATVE. 
FAMILY, FALCONIDiE. 
Taphaetus de Vis. 
T. lacertosus n.s. 
Humerus. — The distal end of a right humerus PI. I., fig. 1. 
Though the size of a bird bone is not in itself any indication of its 
affinities, there are limits within which it is a useful guide to them. 
In the present instance we may give it due consideration. There 
are but few carinate birds in Australia which have a humerus 
over 25 mm. in breadth at the distal end. All told they are the 
pelican, swan, crane, jabiru, bustard, eagle (wedge- tailed), and sea 
eagles. To one or other of the families represented by these 
birds a fossil humerus 31 mm. in breadth may be safely referred, 
until it can be shown to belong to a bird now foreign to Australia. 
For the purpose of ascertaining to which of the families the fossil 
belonged, it is only necessary to glance at its leading features. 
Its proportions alone are nearly able to decide the question, the 
length of the joint measured from the level of the ectepicondylar 
process (a) is much less than its breadth across the condyles ; 
the probrachial or brachialis inferior area (b) is a cavity deeply 
sunken between the edges of the shaft ; the popliteal fossa (c) 
is also, but less deeply, excavated ; the ectepicondyle is tumid 
laterally, its process short but acute ; the entepicondyle (d) 
is only so far oblique as to be directly continuous with the edge 
of the shaft ; the ulnar condyle (e) bears across it, well but not 
sharply defined, the oblique ridge (/), so frequent in birds, and, 
in this instance, forming with the oblique edge of the non-articular 
part of the condyle a V shaped ridge ; the condyles are narrow ; 
the radial extends proximad only to three-fifths of the length 
of the joint ; on the postaxial side of the bone the extensor sulci 
(g) are remarkably broad and deep ; the olecranal fossa (h) is deep 
and well defined. 
With this bone the humerus in Pelecanus is irreconcilable, 
on account of the exceptional fore-and-aft thickness of the entepicon- 
dyle in the latter, the comparative shallowness and indefiniteness 
of its olecranal fossa, and the great length of its condyles, of which 
the radial extends proximad nearly to the level of the place of the 
ectepicondylar process were that developed. The part of the 
humerus in the Swan corresponding to the fossil differs from it 
in its small probrachial area, its shallow popliteal fossa, and the 
extension of its relatively large radial condyle beyond the end 
of the epicondyle, which again is devoid of a process. No sign 
of relationship with the fossil is yielded by the Australian bustard, 
which has, moreover, the radial condyle large and reaching nearly 
to the level of the epicondylar end, the olecranal fossa small, and 
