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natural family as the Brachypteryw, shows that the wings were still less developed than in 
that genus’, The costal border exhibits articulations for five sternal ribs (fig. 7) on each 
side, as in the Brachypteryw ; the anterior border shows a wide and shallow concavity, not 
the deep narrow median notch. There are no pneumatic fossee on the upper surface, 
The anterior buttresses of the keel divide the fore part of the anterior surface of the 
sternum into three parts, as shown in fig. 8, where the coracoid grooves are represented 
near the fractured anterior or costal angles of the bone. 
Bones of the Leg of Notornis. 
The genus Nofornis, of the family of the Rallide, and most nearly allied to the Por- 
phyrio, was established on a skull described and figured in the Memoir on that genus, 
pp- 151, 172, Pl. XLVIIL. 
To the same genus I refer the femur, tibia and tarso-metatarse about to be described, 
on account of their similar correspondence with the homologous bones in Porphyrio, 
and their proportional agreement in size with the skull of the Notorms. 
The specimens were obtained from the North Island of New Zealand, and were 
transmitted by the Rev. William Cotton, M.A. The femur (PI. LI. fig. 3) is moderately 
long and slightly bent with the convexity forwards, as in the Brachypteryx. A small 
head supported on a short and thick neck is impressed on its upper part by a large 
fossa for the ‘ligamentum teres’: the apex of the three-sided trochanter is bent upwards 
and forwards: the broad irregular convex outer surface of the trochanter extends 
between a concavity at the inner and fore part of the trochanter and a smaller concavity 
at the back part of the upper surface of the shaft. A narrow intermuscular ridge ex- 
tends down the middle of the back part of the shaft to the shallow popliteal space, above 
the inner condyle, as in the Brachypteryx: the shaft is nearly cylindrical. T he rotular 
intercondyloid surface is wide and slightly inclined inwards. The fibular notch behind 
the outer condyle, and the rough fossa above it, closely accord with those of the Bra- 
chypteryx. 
The tibia (Pl. LI. fig. 4) measures seven inches ten lines in Jength, and like the femur 
is more slender in proportion to its length than in the Aptornis: the proximal articular 
surface is almost confined to the entocondyloid division, which is very slightly concave 
in adaptation to the almost flattened broad inferior surface of the inner condyle of the 
femur: the intercondyloid tuberosity is low. The epicnemial ridge rises much above it, 
and equals in extent the breadth of the articular surface of the tibia: it forms an angle at 
the fore part of the middle of the proximal end of the tibia and extends thence obliquely 
outwards and backwards, where it terminates by meeting at a right angle the ecto- 
' Since the memoir in which this passage oceurs was printed, the Nolornis has been discovered alive in the 
Middle Island of New Zealand, and an entire skin transmitted thence by Mr, Walter Mantell, which was described 
and exhibited by Mr, Gould at the Meeting of the Zoological Society, November 12, 1850. The wings are too 
short to serve the purposes of Hight, and the feathers show that downy or decomposed character common to those 
land birds that cannot fly. 
