i879-J 
Notices of Books. 
439 
journal of Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South 
Wales for 1877. Vol. xi. Sydney: Richards. London: 
Triibner and Co. 
We may fairly congratulate the Royal Society of New South 
Wales both on the quantity and quality of the work it is doing. 
Of the nineteen papers herein contained all save three deal — 
and deal usefully — with local fadts. We must more particularly 
notice an account of Dromornis Australis , a newly-discovered 
extindt gigantic bird of Australia. The species was founded on 
a femur discovered at Peak Downs, in Queensland, which the 
Rev. W. B. Clarke and M. G. Krefft at first referred to the genus 
Dinornis , and which consequently seemed a proof of a whilom 
land-connedtion between New Zealand and Australia. Prof. 
Owen, however, pointed out that this bone agrees in its essential 
characters more with the emu than the moa, and that it indicates 
the former existence of a bird nearly of the stature of the 
ostrich, but with relatively shorter and stronger hind limbs. 
Hence it appears that Australia, like all other tradts of land in 
the southern hemisphere, whether insular or continental, was at 
one time inhabited by gigantic “flightless” birds. 
The Rev. W. B. Clarke communicates another paper on a new 
fossil extindt kangaroo ( Sthenurus minor), part of the skull of 
which was found in the shaft of a gold-lead in Phillip County, 
New South Wales. He expresses a fear that in the indiscrimi- 
nate slaughter of marsupials now in progress some species not 
yet recognised may perish unnoticed. 
A paper on the “ Forest Vegetation of Central and Northern 
New England ” may at first sight be open to a misunderstanding. 
This name has, as if for the very purpose of creating confusion, 
been given to a district in Australia. The author, Mr. W. 
Christy, gives an account of a carnivorous plant Drosera peltata , 
— the “ bottle-weed ” of the squatters, — which is accused of 
causing disease in sheep, There is also a description of twenty- 
one species of Eucalyptus growing in this region. 
Dr. W. J. Barkas communicates memoirs on the “ Sphenoid, 
Cranial Bones, Operculum, and supposed Ear Bones of Cteno- 
dus ,” and on a “ Dental Peculiarity of the Lepidosteidae.” 
Natural History of Victoria. Prodromus of the Zoology of 
Victoria, or Figures and Descriptions of the Living Species 
of all Classes of the Vidtorian Indigenous Animals. 
Decade I. By Frederick McCoy. Melbourne : J. Ferries 
and G. Robertson. London : Triibner and Co. 
We have here the beginning of what promises to be a most 
valuable work, creditable alike to its author and the Vidtorian 
