140—12 INDIAN TERTIARY AND POST-TERTIARY VERTEBRATA. 
In the following table the dimensions of the four specimens described above are 
compared with those of the corresponding bones of the living emeu. The two 
middle-sized fossil bones, which belonged to individuals of the same size, are placed 
in the second column : — 
Length of first phalangeal .... 
l' 
Fossil. 
X 
l2-4 
N 
2 3 
D. noviB-hollandite. 
1-8 
Ant. -post. diam. of proximal surface of ditto 
1-36 
1 15 
0-75 
Transverse ditto ditto 
1-3 
1-2 
0-7 
Ant. -post. diam. of distal ditto 
0 9 
0 7 
0-46 
Transverse ditto ditto 
1-0 
0-8 
0-6 
Length of second phalangeal .... 
1-.51 
13 
0 8 
Ant. -post. diam. of proximal surface of ditto 
I'O 
‘0-8.5 
0‘55 
Transverse ditto ditto 
1-38 
M 
0-62 
Ant. -post. diam. of distal ditto 
0-7 
jO'65 
0-45 
Transverse ditto ditto 
1-3.5 
1-08 
0-54 
Distinctness and affinities . — The resemblance of tliO bones described above to those 
of the living emeu is so close that there seems little doubt but that they indicate the 
existence of a nearly allied bird in the Siwaliks. Whether the fossil was generically 
identical with the recent form may perhaps on the whole be somewhat doubtful, but 
there is every probability that the one was the ancestral form of the other ; and it 
inay therefore be well to continue to refer the fossil to Vromceus^ until such time as it 
shall be proved distinct. It is, however, by no means imjDrobable that the Siwalik 
bird may belong to the pleistocene Australian gdnus Dromomis, of Avhich the 
corresponding bones are at present unknown. That the Siwalik form was specifically 
distinct from the living emeu is evident, and the specific name sivalensis may therefore 
stand. Whether more than one sjDecies is at present <|3omprehended under that name 
cannot be determined; but if such should eventually prove to be the case, the 
middle-sized bones whose measurements are given in the second column of the 
foregoing table may be regarded as the types. ! 
Distribution. — As previously observed, the present form has hitherto been 
obtained only from the Siwaliks of tlie Punjab; but from its relationship to the 
Australian emeu it is to be expected that it will evejntually be found in the typical 
Siwalik Hills. i 
The former occurrence in India of a large strut^iioid closely allied to the emeu 
is one more instance of the originally wide distribution of the struthioid birds ; and 
it not improbably indicates that the home of the group of which the cassowaries, 
emeus, and moas are diverging branches was originally somewhere in the neighbour- 
hood of the Indian region ; from whence a migrationl took place during some part of 
the tertiary period towards the south-east, where the group, in regions more or less 
completely free from the larger mammals, subsequently attained its greatest 
development. ' 
1 
Genus, non. det. | 
^ 1 . . 
Phalangeal . — In plate XIV., fig. 8, there is represented, from the anterior aspect, 
the second phalangeal of the middle (third) digit of the foot of a tridactyle struthioid 
