659 
thick, overlaid by thirty feet of black trappean alluvium. Clarke referred the bone to 
JDinornis, but in 1872 Sir E. Owen fully described it as a new genus allied to Bromaius, 
under the name of Broniornis (/5. australis, OwenV The remains of Bromornis are 
also known from New South Wales, for the mutilated femur from the Wellington 
Caves, figured by Prof. Owen m Mitchell’s “Three Expeditions into the Interior of 
East Australia,”* ia regarded by him as identical with the Queensland bone. It is 
thirteen inches in length, and was considered by Prof. Owen, from comparative 
measurements, to represent a bird with a greater stature than the Binornis elephant o^us. 
At the time Mr. Clarke made his announcement the late Mr. G. Krelit referred 
to the remains of this bird as a Moa, about the size of the Binornis robustus. He says, 
“ The specimen proving the presence of the gigantic bird, a large femur, was found on 
the Leichhardt Downs in Queensland, eighty-six feet below the surface, and is now in 
the Australian Museum.” 
A pelvis of Bromornis was subsequently found in the Canadian Gold Lead, near 
Gulgong, New South Wales, aud a mutilated left tibia at Mount Gambler, South 
Australia,t both of which were examined, and the latter described by Sir Eichard 
Ovveu.J His conclusions on the femur and tibia are the following : — 
“ The femur, in its essential character, resembles that of the Emu more than it 
does the similar bone of the Moa,” and that “ the characters in which it more resembles 
Binornis are concomitant with, and related to, the more general strength and robust- 
ness of the bone— from which we may infer that the species manifested dinornithic 
strength and proportions of the hind limbs, combined with the characters of close affinity 
to the existing smaller, more slender-limbed, aud swifter wingless bird peculiar to the 
Australian continent.”§ 
With regard to the tibia, it need be only stated that there is a nearer resemblance 
“ as in the femur of the gigantic wingless bird of A ustralia to the genera still there 
represented (^Bromaius and Gasuarina) than to Binornis, Apteryx, or Struthio. 1| 
In 1889, amongst a collection of bones received at the Geological and Mining 
Museum, Sydney, from Mr. A. S. Cotter, several fragments of bird bones were recognised. 
The specimens were obtained at a depth of twenty feet from the surface in sinking a 
well on Caiwarroo Station, near Thargomindah, on the Paroo Eiver. The bird bones 
consist of portions of the right tibia and left fibula of Bromornis, and part of the right 
tibia of a Bromaius. _ i v i 
The Bromornis tibia is the distal extremity of the right bone, obliquely 
broken as near as possible about the middle of the shaft. The comparative measurements 
agree fairly well with those of Professor Owen, bearing in mind the relative state of 
preservation of the bones. 
Measurements. 
Owen’s 
DromomU. 
Paroo 
Dromornis. 
Inches, Lines. 
Inches. Lines. 
Transverse breadtli of tli© sbaft at the commencement of the 
2 2 
2 li 
distal expansion 
Transverse breadth of the shaft at the commencement of the 
3 5 
3 0 
distal condyles 
1 
of 
* 2 Vols. 8tu., London, 1838. 
t Trans. Zool. Soc., 1877, x., Pt. 3, p. 186. 
X For a full history of these discoveries see Clarke, loe. eit. 
§ Trans. Zool. Soc., 187.3, viii., Pt. 6, p. 383. 
11 Ibid., 1877, X., Pt. 3, No. 8, p. 187. Mr. De Vis informs me 
the affinities of Drmtiornis, 
that he does not concur 
in Owen’s view 
