54 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[vOL. XII. 
It will be seen from the foregoing measm-ementa that the fossil and recent 
bones bear the same relative projjortions, and that the larger fossils are almost 
exactly double the size of the recent bones. The difference in the size of the 
fossils does] not appear to be greater than that which might occur in different 
individuals of the same species. There are some very slight minor differences 
between the fossil bones and those of DromcBiis novcc-liollandicE, but they do not 
appear to me to be more than of specific value; and I think that the fossils 
should undoubtedly be referred to that genus. 
It may be well to observe, that the outermost digit of Strutliio has its phal¬ 
angeal bones of a much more slender tj^pe than those of Dromceus, and each 
bone is more nearly symmetrical in itself than in the latter genus. The stout and 
obliquely shaped fossil bones cannot therefore belong to Struthio. 
Had it not been that M. Milne-Edwards had referred' the struthious Siwalik 
bones in the British Museum to the two-toed genus Struthio, I should have 
not improbably referred all the bones to one species. The tibio-tarsus of Struthio 
asiaticus is, however, rather small for the fossil phalanges. For the three-toed 
Siwalik struthioid bird I propose the name of Drornmus sivalensis. If it should 
turn out eventually that M. Milne-Edwai’ds was erroneous in referring the stru¬ 
thioid tibio-tarsus to the genus Struthio, and that that bone really belongs to a 
three-toed species, then it may possibly belong to BroiiKEUs sivalensis. Irrespect¬ 
ive of this question, however, the new fossil bones afford us indisputable evi¬ 
dence of the former existence in India of an emeu of double the size of the existing 
emeu of Hew Holland, and which must have rivalled in size some of the gigantic 
fossil three-toed wingless birds of Hew Zealand. 
If we accept M. Milne-Edwai-ds’ Struthio asiaticus, it is clear that the 
ostriches of Africa and the emeus of Australia once had a common home on 
the plains of India, and it is possibly from this common home that they have 
gradually spread, till they are now isolated from one another on opposite sides 
of the globe. 
The living faunas of India and of the Australian region are almost totally 
distinct; but there are a few indications in Celebes and some of the neighbouring 
islands of there having been a former communication between the African 
Oriental, and Australian faunas ; and it is probable that the same means of com¬ 
munication afford a passage for the Struthionidie. Mr. Wallace,' in explanation 
of the supposed communication, suggests that a lai’ge tract of land formerly 
extended from Australia in a north-westerly direction to Asia, and that this old 
land was probably the home of the ancestors of Sus, Bahirusa, Phacoohmrus, Anoa, 
Btibalm, Cynopitlieoue, Gynocephalus, and ilaeacus, to which we may now probably 
add Dronixiis and Struthio. 
Since the emeus and cassowaries are not found fossil in Australia or Hew 
Guinea, while numerous fossil species of marsupials occur throughout these 
islands, and since struthioids are known to have existed in the older pliocene (or 
' Geographical distribution of Animals, Vol. I, p. 437. 
