PA LMOLES TES GOREI. 17 
latter with all the remaining Australian families. It is not pro- 
posed to recapitulate the differential features observed in the sub- 
jects of these comparisons; this is a procedure less calculated tc 
increase knowledge than to display it. The results of the inquiry 
were that no recent bird could supply a replica of the fossil phalanx, 
and that the nearest approach to it was to be found among the 
Accipitres, to what family of the Birds of Prey is altogether uncer- 
tain. If this phalanx should prove to belong to an extant bird 
which has become extinct in Australia, the proposal now made to let 
it bear the name of Palceolestes gorei may be excused since foreign 
materials of research of the kind are but scantily at the service of 
the writer. 
