isting or extinct animal. The tree being thus partly undermined and firmly grappled with, the muscles of the trunk, the pelvis, and hind-limbs, animated by the nervous influence of the unusually large spinal cord, would combine their forces with those of the anterior members in the efforts at prostration. And now let us picture to ourselves the massive frame of the Megatherium, convulsed with the mighty wrestling, every vibrating fibre reacting upon its bony attachment with a force which the sharp and strong crests and apophyses loudly bespeak :-extraordinary must have been the strength and proportions of that tree which, rocked to and fro, to right and left, in such an embrace, could long withstand the efforts of its ponderous assailant.' The tree being prostrate, we are next to look for indications of instruments fitted for stripping off the foliage. The Megatherium, whose teeth and jaws were adapted to the comminution of the coarser parts of tree-foliage, appears to have been endowed with a short proboscis, as an assistant to the tongue and since, with lips and a nose modified to gain prehensile power, there would have been tess need of an inordinate development of the tongue, the evidence of the proboscis of the Megatherium harmonises with the smaller size of its hypoglossal nerves, and with the diminution of the capacity of its mouth, occasioned by the narrowing of the palate and the mutual approximation of the lateral series of grinders. The elephant, hugest of existing phyllophagous quadrupeds, is characterised by a maximum of proboscis: the giraffe by a long and muscular tongue. Both a prehensile tongue and proboscis, but of moderate size, coexisted in the Megatherium. The Mylodon, which had no proboscis, was compensated for its absence by a more largely developed tongue, and is thus contrasted with the almost tongueless elephant. It will at once occur to the reader that these Megatherian animals must from their habits of life have been unusually liable to blows from heavy falling bodies; and, to meet such danger, they were provided with a peculiar cranial organization. Extensive air-cells were introduced between the external and vitreous tables of the skull; and Professor Owen thus inquires into the probable cause of the fractures, from the immediately fatal effects of which the subject of his memoir appears to have been saved by virtue of that remarkable structure : The Sloths, though specially and admirably organised for clinging to the boughs of trees, yet in the course of an existence exclusively spent therein are liable, through unforeseen contingencies of rotten branches or sound ones yielding to the force of winds, to be occasionally thrown to the ground; without attaching undeserved credit to the story of these excellent climbers choosing that abrupt and hazardous mode of descent by preference.* The coarse matted hair with which their light body is densely covered is well suited to break the force of such falls, whilst any injury to the brain seems to have been provided against by the strong double bony wall of the cranial cavity which results from the extension of the air-cells from the frontal along the upper part of the head to the occipital region. But the same structure exists to an equal or greater extent in the Mylodon, which, according to my interpretation of its organization, was not a climber, not subject therefore to a fall. Yet the liability of the Mylodon, in the habitual practice of uprending and prostrating large trees, to be struck by the trunk or some of the large branches, must have been greater than that of the Sloth to a fall from its tree; and therefore the advantage to the Mylodon of having a double brain-case would not be less. Certain it is that the habits of life, or the conditions under which the Mylodon existed, did render it obnoxious to violent blows on the head, and that it was owing to the extensive and deep cellular diploë of the skull that they were not, in the present instance, death-blows. It is at least not probable that any large mammiferous animal could have survived so extensive and complicated a fracture and depression of the vitreous table at the back part of the skull, as that which in the Mylodon is here confined to the outer table. Either of the blows, however, to the force of which that strong plate of bone has yielded, must have stunned and at least have temporarily disabled the animal; and, if inflicted by the paw of some sufficiently powerful carnivore, would have left the Mylodon its easy and unresisting prey. If the skull of an animal so destroyed had been preserved and afterwards discovered Buffon, 'Histoire Naturelle,' tom. xiii. p. 43. | in a fossil state, the broken bones would not have presented any of those effects of the reparative processes which are so extensively manifested in the very remarkable specimen under consideration. 'It is not very probable that the Mylodon, if disabled and its skull fractured by a blow received in conflict with another of its kind, would have been suffered to escape: the victorious assailant would in all likelihood have followed up his advantage by a mortal wound, such as an irate Megatherium might easily have inflicted with its sharp and ponderous claw, if excited by combative or destructive instincts. Nothing, however, that has yet reached us of the habits of existing Edentata would lead to the supposition that the extinct ones were actuated by these instincts, or were characterised by less peaceful habits than those of the Sloths, the Ant-eaters, and Armadillos of the present day. Only in self-defence against the carnivorous Jaguar or Puma is the strong-clawed Ant-eater (Myrmecophaga jubata) reported to use successfully its powerful weapons, with the analogues of which a Mylodon or Megatherium might be conjectured to have produced the injuries in our present fossil, on the combative hypothesis of their origin. But in the conflict of the great Ant-eater with the Jaguar, the predatory assailant is overcome by the pertinacity of the grasp, not by the force of the blow. The only analogies, therefore, by which we can test the conjecture that the injuries in question were inflicted by another Megatherioid animal, diminish its probability. 'There is no certain or conclusive evidence that human beings coexisted with the Megatherian animals: but assuming a primæval race of Indians to have disputed the lordship of the American forests with the Edentate giants, and to have waged against them, as against all other inferior animals, a war of extermination, the same difficulty presents itself to the supposition of the recovery and escape of a stunned Mylodon from their deadly assaults with clubs and other weapons, as from the claws and teeth of the beasts of prey: for the flesh of the leaf-eating Megatherian would doubtless be as much prized for food by a human destroyer as that of the Sloth is by the Indians of the present day. With these difficulties, therefore, opposing themselves to the conjectures which naturally rise in the mind at the first view of the injuries on the skull of the extinct Mylodon, and which suggest the hostile attacks of some other animal as their cause, we are compelled to refer those injuries to the effects of some inanimate force, which, having felled the Mylodon and temporarily disabled it, was spent, and could not follow up the blow. To a huge denizen of the woods what accident more likely to produce such injuries than the fall of a tree? and what inhabitant of the forest more obnoxious to such an accident than one destined by its organization to be habitually engaged in uprooting, and therefore in danger from the fall of heavy trees? The form of the healed, as well as of the partly healed fracture, in both of which the fissures diverge from a longitudinal, instead of radiating from a central depression, accords better with a blow from a branch or trunk of a tree than with one inflicted by the point of a large claw. It must, therefore, be conceded that both the injuries, and the structure of the skull by which their immediate fatal effects have been obviated, accord with the habits assigned to the Megatherian animals in the present Memoir; while they can receive no elucidation from, nor appear in any way connected with, the acts of digging the earth for roots, or ants, or for concealment, which have been severally conjectured to be the habitual labour of the Megatherioids by Cuvier, D'Alton, and De Blainville.' Zoological Summary. The genera Bradypus and Cholapus have been usually regarded as forming one of the most anomalous and isolated groups of mammiferous quadrupeds. Cuvier placed them in the lowest order of Unguiculata, and De Blainville has raised them to the highest or quadrumanous order, agreeably with an old opinion of Linnæus. With the advantage of our present knowledge of the extinct Megatherioids, the tardigrade and scansorial Edentata, which appeared formerly to be a very restricted and aberrant group, are now recognizable as the small remnant of an extensive tribe of leaf-devouring and tree-destroying animals, the larger extinct species of which, with their gigantically developed but modified unguiculate structure, formed the lowest grade of mammals furnished with claws, and completed the transition to the Ungulata. Professor Owen observes that it would border upon the ridiculous to advocate the claims of the Mylodon to the quadrumanous order because its thorax was wide rather than deep, its muzzle broad and truncated, its pelvis expanded, the head of the radius round and apt for rotation, the inflection of the carpus and tarsus free, the long claws prehensile, and the diet exclusively vegetable. Yet the claims of the Megatherians to be associated with apes and lemurs are, he remarks, equal with those of the sloths. The Megatherioids most probably, like the sloths, gave birth to a single and unusually large foetus: in that particular they would coincide with the elephant and whale as much as with the ape. If their uterus was undivided, as in the sloths, they would agree with the Armadillos as well as the Quadrumanes. After other considerations of the probable condition of the brain, the dental system and structure, Professor Owen thus concludes his zoological summary: The degradation of the armature of the jaws in this order produces, especially in the truly edentulous Ant-eaters, a resemblance to the class of birds in one of their bestmarked characters; and amongst the implacental Edentata we find the jaws themselves assuming the form of a duck's bill in the Ornithorhynchus. 6 It may be observed of the Sloths that they illustrate this affinity or tendency to the oviparous type by the supernumerary cervical vertebræ supporting false ribs, and by the convolution of the windpipe in the thorax, in the threetoed species; by the lacertine character of three and twenty pairs of ribs in the Unau; and by the single excrementory or cloacal outlet, by the low cerebral development, by the great tenacity of life and long-enduring irritability of the muscular fibre, in both species.* Most interesting, therefore, becomes the discovery that in one of the huge extinct Sloths another character, heretofore deemed peculiar to the class of birds, should have been repeated, viz. the bony confluence of the last dorsal and the lumbar vertebræ with the sacrum. All these indications of a transition to a lower class harmonise with the Cuvierian view of the zoological position of the Sloths, as members of one of the lowest and most aberrant orders of Mammalia; and all oppose themselves to the promotion of the Sloths to the Primates, and to their separation from the terrestrial Edentata, which afford in the Ant-eaters and Pangolins, the Echidna and Ornithorhynchus, so many additional retrograde steps towards the oviparous classes. 'It would be tedious to reiterate the special and gradational affinities of the Mylodon and its congeners to the different families of the Edentate order, since these have been so fully elucidated in the comparisons of the several parts of their skeletons. They establish the general conclusion that the existing arboreal and extinct terrestrial Sloths constitute a primary division or type of the order Bruta, or Edentata, equivalent to the tribe Loricata, or Armadillos, and to the true Edentata, or the Ant-eaters and Pangolins. 'The teeth and jaws give the essential character, and govern the aliment of the new primary group, of which the name Phyllophaga, here proposed, indicates the characteristic and peculiar diet. The characters of the tribe, of its families and genera, and of the extinct species especially noticed in the present Memoir, are given in the subjoined Synoptical Table.' 'Cor motum suum validissime retinebat, postquam exemptum erat è corpore, per semihorium ;-Exempto corde cæterisque visceribus, multo post se movebat et pedes lente contrahebat sicut dormituriens solet.' Pison, Hist. Bras. p. 322, quoted by Buffon, who well observes, Par ces rapports, ce quadrupède se raproche non-seulement de la tortue, dont il a déjà la lenteur, mais encore des autres reptiles et de tous ceux qui n'ont pas un centre du sentiment unique et bien distinct.' (Loc. cit., p. 45.) P. C., No. 1615. Family I. Tardigrada (Syn. Scansoria, Bradypodide). Feet long, slender, the anterior more or less longer than the posterior; fore-feet di- or tri-dactyle, hind-feet tridac tyle; toes obvolute, falculate. Zygomatic arch open. Tail very short. Genus 1. Genus 2. Family II. riida). Bradypus, Linn., Ill. (Syn. Acheus, F. Cuv.). Feet short, very strong, equal or subequal, fore-feet penta- or tetra-dactyle; one or two of the external toes unarmed, fit for support and progression; the rest falculate. Zygomatic arch closed. Clavicies perfect. Tail moderate, stout, and acting as a fulcrum or prop. Genus 1. Megalonyx, Jefferson, Cuv. (Syn. Megatherium, Desm., Fisch.). 5-5? 4 4 Teeth subelliptical, the middle of the crown excavated, the margins slightly prominent. Fore-legs the longest: the tibia and fibula distinct: the heel-bone long, compressed, and deep: the falcular claws great and compressed. Species. Meg. Jeffersoni, Cuv. (Syn. Megatherium Jeffersoni, Desm., Fisch.; Megalonyx laqueatus, Harlan*). Genus 2. Megatherium, Cuv. (Syn. Bradypus, Pander and D'Alton). Teeth 5-5 4-4?" contiguous, tetragonal, the crown transversely sulcated. The fore-feet tetradactyle; the hindfeet tridactyle, the two external toes unarmed. The falcular claws great and diversiform; those of the middle toe greatest, and compressed. Femur with an entire (unimpressed) head; tibia concrete with the fibula at each extremity. Astragalus with the anterior face excavated above. Heel-bone long and thick. Species. Meg. Cuvieri, Desm. (Syn. Bradypus giganteus, Pander and D'Alton). Genus 3. Mylodon, Owen. Orycterotherium, Harlan). Teeth 5-5 4 4 (Megalonyx, Harlant; distinct, the anterior upper tooth subellip tical, moderately remote from the rest; the second ellip tical; the rest trigonal with the internal face longitudinally sulcated: the anterior lower tooth elliptical, the penulti mate tetragonal; the last, which is the greatest, bilobate. Feet equal fore-feet pentadactyle; hind-feet tetradactyle; the two external toes in both unarmed, the rest falculate: the falcular claws great, semiconical, and unequal. Head of the femur impressed by the round ligament: tibia and fibula distinct astragalus with the anterior face flattened above; heel-bone long and thick. Species 1. Myl. Darwinii, O. The lower jaw with the symphysis longer and narrower ; the second molar subelliptical; the last bisulcate, the internal furrow angular. Species 2. Myl. Harlani, O. (Megalonyx laqueatus, Harlan; Orycterotherium Missouriense, Harian.). Lower jaw with a shorter and wider symphysis; second molar subquadrate; the last trisulcate, the internal furrow bi-angular. Species 3. Myl. robustus, O. Lower jaw with the symphysis shorter and wider; second molar subtrigonal; the last trisulcate, the internal furrow rounded. Genus 4. Scelidotherium, Owen. (Syn. Megalonyx, Lund§). * Professor Owen remarks that the species is founded on fossils from Bigpp. 319-331. The author, he observes, does not prove the specific distinction of these remains from the Megalonyr Jeffersoni of Cuv. Bone Cave, Tenessee, described in the Medical and Physical Researches, Professor Owen refers to his genus Mylodon the lower jaw described by Dr. Harlan. loc. cit. pp. 334-335. It is erroneously, Professor Owen remarks, ascribed to Megalonyr laqueatus, or Pleurodon of Harlan. p. 109. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,' vol. ii., No. xx., Professor Owen is in doubt whether the term Platyonyx, subsequently proposed by Dr. Lund, be really intended to apply to the animals of the genus Scelidotherium, seeing that the breadth of their claw-bones is equalled by the height and vastly exceeded by the length of the same: it would be very descriptive, the Professor says, of the broad ungual bones of the Glyptodon and its congeners. The term Platyonychus had already been applied by M. Edwards to a genus of crabs. VOL. XXV.-3 T Genus 6. Sphænodon, Lund.* In the Unau the number of cervical vertebræ is seven : in the Three-toed Sloth, Bradypus tridactylus, the number is nine. The close approximation of the Sloths to the Birds in many parts of their organization calls upon us here to notice a discovery which will make the year in which we write (1843) a very remarkable one in the zoological calendar; and before we enter into the particulars of that discovery, we will just illustrate the close approximation above referred to, by observing that if nothing but the broken gigantic pelvis of the bird hereinafter noticed were laid before even an experienced eye, it might fairly enough be taken on a superficial view to have belonged to the genus Mylodon, though a closer examination would detect certain minute characters which show that it could not have belonged to a quadruped. In the article STRUTHIONIDE will be found Professor Owen's descriptions of the fragment of a femur said to have been found in New Zealand, laid before the Zoological Society of London in 1839. [Vol. xxiii., p. 147.] On the 17th of May, 1842, the Reverend William Williams wrote from Poverty Bay, New Zealand, to Dr. Buck-cated rather than satisfactorily established. The teeth of the Sloth, he obland, and his letter contained an extract from another, sent by way of Port Nicholson, in February of the same year. ence in an inaccessible cavern on the side of a hill near the river Wairoa, and they showed me at the same time *Professor Owen thinks that both this genus and Calodon, Lund, are indiassume the cylindrical form until worn down to the part which has acquired in serves, are first developed in the form of hollow, obtuse cones, and do not the progress of growth the normal thickness; and this is afterwards maintained without appreciable alteration during the subsequent uninterrupted growth or the tooth. The compressed molars of the Scelidatherium, which, he remarks, It is about three years ago, on paying a visit to this doubtless follow the same law of development, would present in the young coast south of the East Cape, that the natives told me of animal the form of hollow wedges, and such he suspects to be the nature of those teeth which are figured by Dr. Lund in the above-cited Danish memoir, some extraordinary monster, which they said was in exist-plate xvii., figs. 5-10, and on which he has founded his genus Sphenodon UNA 507 some fragments of bone taken out of the beds of rivers, which they said belonged to this creature, to which they gave the name of Moa. When I came to reside in this neighbourhood I heard the same story a little enlarged; for it was said that this creature was still existing at the said hill, of which the name is Wakapunake, and that it is guarded by a reptile of the Lizard species, but I could not learn that any of the present generation had seen it. I still considered the whole as an idle fable, but offered a large reward to any who would catch me either the bird At length a bone was brought from the or its protector. river running at the foot of the hill, of large size, but the extremities were so much worn away, that I could not determine anything as to its proper relationship. About two months ago a single bone of smaller size was brought from a fresh-water stream in this bay, for which I gave a good payment, and this induced the natives to go in large numbers to turn up the mud at the banks and in the bed of the same river, and soon a larger number of bones was brought of various dimensions. On a comparison with the bones of a fowl, I immediately perceived that they belonged to a bird of gigantic size. The bones of which the greatest number have been brought are the three bones of the leg, a few toe-bones, and one claw, which is in size*, a few imperfect pelves, a few vertebræ of different dimensions, and one imperfect cranium, which is small. There are also a few broken pieces, which seem to be ribs. In the case now sent you will receive the largest specimens I have obtained, and also a few of smaller size. The length of the large bone of the leg is 2 feet 10 inches. I have a second case, which I shall send by another vessel, to make sure of your receiving them. If the bones are found to be of sufficient interest, I leave it to your judgment to make what use of them you think proper. But if the duplicates reach you, perhaps one set may with propriety be deposited in our museum at Oxford. The following observations may not be devoid of interest : 1st. None of these bones have been found on the dry land, but are all of them from the banks and beds of freshwater rivers, buried only a little distance in the mud. The largest number are from a small stream in Poverty Bay, but they are also found in a similar position at Waiapu, Tologa Bay, Wairoa, and at many inconsiderable streams, and all these streams are in immediate connection with hills of some altitude. 2nd. This bird was in existence here at no very distant time, though not in the memory of any of the inhabitants; for the bones are found in the beds of the present streams, and do not appear to have been brought into their present situation by the action of any violent rush of waters. 3rd. That they existed in considerable numbers. I have received perfect and imperfect bones of no less than thirty different birds. 4th. It may be inferred that this bird was long-lived, and that it was many years before it attained its full size. Out of a large number of bones, only one leg-bone, now sent, is of the size of 2 feet 10 inches; two others are 2 feet 6 inches, one of which I shall send hereafter; the rest are all of inconsiderable size. 5th. The greatest height of the bird was probably not UNA of them, that they were satisfied with looking at him, This incident might not have been worth mentioning, On the 10th of January, 1843, Professor Owen read before a meeting of the Zoological Society of London a paper in which he stated, that since the communication of the Rev. Mr. Cotton* relative to the remains of the gigantic bird of New Zealand which had been collected in the North Island, by the Rev. Wm. Williams, one of the boxes of the remains transmitted by that gentleman to Professor Buckland had been received, and that the specimens had been liberally placed in his hands for description. Professor Owen remarks, that an entire femur, somewhat larger than that of which the shaft (the fragment above alluded to) is described and figured in the Society's Transactions (vol. iii., p. 32, pl. 3), proves the specific identity of the remains so sent with that fragment, upon which he had ventured to affirm three years ago, that a large Struthious Bird, of a heavier and more sluggish species than the Ostrich,' had recently become extinct, if it were not still living in New Zealand. The femur, he observes, has very nearly the same proportions of thickness to length as in the Ostrich, but the shaft is less compressed; it consequently differs from that of the Apteryx in being shorter in proportion to its thickness; but it resembles the femur of the Apteryx, and differs from that of the Ostrich and Emeu in the important character of the absence of the air-hole at the back part of air in the interior of the bone. It differs from the femur the neck, and the consequent substitution of marrow for of the Ostrich and agrees with that of the Apteryx in the greater width of the anterior of the condyles. It differs from that of the Apteryx, not only in the general proportions, but also in the form of the distal extremity, which has a deeper posterior intercondyloid depression, and a sharper and more produced posterior part of the outer condyle. Professor Owen states that the length of the femur of the great bird compared is 11 inches, the circumference of the middle of the shaft 5 inches; but he adds, that the collection transmitted by Mr. Williams includes the shaft of a femur of another individual having a circumference of 74 inches. The most perfect tibia in the collection under consideration measured 2 feet 4 inches, and apparently correfemur: allowing, then, that femur 14 inches of entire sponded in proportion with the fragment of the largest length, the tibia is twice the length of the femur, while in the Apteryx the tibia is only one-third longer than the femur. The larger Struthionidæ, the Ostrich and Emeu for exProfessor Owen remarks, in the length of their tibia, but it ample, more nearly resemble the great New Zealand bird, is not quite twice the length of the femur in those species. The tibia of the great New Zealand bird differs, he observes, from that of the Apteryx and all the large Struthionida Professor Owen in the complete osseous canal for the passage of an extensor tendon in the anterior concavity above the distal condyles. This osseous canal is commonly found in the tibia of the Gralla, Gallina, and Anseres. found the proportion of length to thickness of the tibia to be nearly the same in the Ostrich and the great New Zealand bird: the circumference of the tibia at its proxiBut the most instructive bone in the box sent upon the mal end in the latter was 15 inches, at its middle 5 inches. present occasion was a tarso-metatarsal bone, showing that the gigantic bird was tridactyle, like the Emeu, Rhea, and Cassowary. The remains of the proximal end of the bone proved it to have been articulated with a tibia about an eighth part shorter than that above described, that is, * This letter corroborates the statements of the Rev. W. Williams. 3T2 to a tibia about two feet in length. The length of this tarso-metatarsal bone is one foot, or, as Professor Owen remarks, half the length of the tibia; and this is exactly the proportion which the tarso-metatarsal bone of the Apteryx bears to the tibia. The tarso-metatarsal bone in the Emeu is as long as the tibia: in the Ostrich it is a little shorter. Professor Owen gives the following comparative admeasurements, showing the difference in the proportions of the tarso-metatarsal bone of the gigantic bird of New Zealand and of the Emeu: Length Dinornis. In. Lin. 12 4 5 Dromaius. In. Lin. 14 6 2 8 2 10 Circumference of the middle Breadth of the distal end and he observes, that the comparative shortness and strength of the trifid metatarsal of the gigantic New Zealand bird forms its most striking resemblance to the Apteryx, which it thus approximates more closely than any of the large existing Struthionidæ. The Professor then goes on to remark, that the proportions of the leg-bones, and their denser texture, especially that of the femur, which, as in the Apteryx, contains no air, sufficiently indicate the generic distinction of the great New Zealand bird from the tridactyle Emeu, Rhea, and Cassowary. Then the question arises, is it, likewise, generically distinct from the Apteryx, or is it a gigantic species of that genus? This question he shows to be determined by the tarso-metatarsal bone. The Apteryx, he observes, is distinguished from the other Struthionidae, not more by its elongated bill, than by the presence of a fourth small toe on the inner and back part of the foot, articulated to a slightly elevated rough surface of the tarso-metatarsal bone, about a fourth of the length of that bone from its distal end. Now there is no trace of the articular surface in the tarso-metatarsal of the gigantic bird, which was consequently tridactyle, as in the Emeu, Rhea, and Cassowary. The Dodo was tetradactyle, like the Apteryx: the shorter proportions of the legs of the Dodo also distinguished it from the gigantic bird, whose career, Professor Owen remarks, in the North Island of New Zealand seems to have been closed at a period apparently corresponding with the extinction of the Dodo in the island of Rodriguez. The results of the foregoing comparisons justify the reference of the Great Bird of New Zealand to a distinct genus of the Struthious family, for which Professor Owen proposes the name of Dinornis, with the specific appellation Nova Zealandiæ. mine what limit there was to the growth of Dinornis Nove Zealandice. The comparatively small bones now sent give a height of about fourteen feet. It is curious and instructive, with these wonderful bones before one, to look back to Professor Owen's description of the fragment of bone which first came under his notice, and to read the deductions which he drew from it. Entirely in the dark, with the exception of the glimmering light which he extracted from that fragment (the mere shaft of the bone, be it remembered), every word that he then wrote has come true to the letter. Long ago he showed us the outline, which he had drawn, of what the ends of this fragment of a femur ought to be; and it is but just to this acute and deep-thinking physiologist to say that if the drawing had been made from the perfect bone it could hardly have been more accurate. We have remarked that this is instructive; and we think it will not be denied that it shows what may be done in the way of arriving at the structure of an entire animal from a single bone or even the fragment of a bone, notwithstanding the doubts expressed by certain modern French physiologists as to the value of the method of Cuvier and the use of it by his followers. Let us not be misunderstood: it is an instrument not to be wielded by every hand. He who would apply it with any success must have vast experience in all the phases of organic forms and a powerfully comprehensive mind. But because this instrument has been misapplied by the feeble, it is not to be deemed valueless. sil footstep of a bird with the comparatively small bones Nor is this all. Upon comparing the largest known fosbelonging to the gigantic bird of New Zealand now in this country, it was not a jot too large to have been impressed by the tridactylous toes of Dinornis. What a chapter this opens in the book of ORNITHICHNITES!* Rubiaceae, so named by Schreber from uncus, a hook, the UNCA'RIA, a genus of plants of the natural family of old or inferior sterile peduncles being converted into hooked axillary spines. Being closely allied, Uncaria is sometimes considered only a subgenus of Nauclea. The flowers are aggregate, on a globular receptacle. Calyx tubularly urceolate, 5-cleft. Corol funnel-shaped, with a slender tube and naked throat. Stamens 5. Ovary 2-celled. Capsules pedicellate, clavate, attenuated at the base. Seeds imbricated, winged. Embryo inverse and furnished with a perisperm. The species are chiefly natives of India, but a few are found in America. They are permanent cirrhiferous ramblers, hanging to different trees by the hooked old peduncles. One is sufficiently remarkable, from its In conclusion, Professor Owen observes that the extra-economical uses, to require a detailed notice. This is the ordinary size of the tibia above described, and, still more, Gambier plant, Uncaria Gambier of Roxburgh, a native of that of the tibia, said to measure 2 feet 10 inches in Penang, Sumatra, Malacca, &c., from which the substance length, obtained by Mr. Williams, prove the Dinornis of called Gambier by the Malays is prepared, and which is New Zealand to be the most gigantic of known birds: known in commerce by the names of Terra japonica and there is, he remarks, extremely little probability that it will Catechu. ever be found, whether living or extinct, in any other part of the world than the islands of New Zealand or parts adjacent. At all events, he considers that the Dinornis Nova Zealandic will always remain one of the most extraordinary of the zoological facts in the history of those islands; and he thinks, most correctly in our opinion, that it may not be saying too much to characterise it as one of the most remarkable acquisitions to zoology in general which the present century has produced. (Zool. Proc.) It is impossible to look at these colossal remains without acknowledging that there is some excuse for the fright of the adventurers who allege that they saw this feathered Goliath in the flesh. The bones are massive: far stouter and broader than those of the other tridactylous Struthionidæ, much stouter and broader, more mammalian, so to speak, than in the Apteryx;* and the bulk of the bird must have been great. The femur of the Irish giant O'Byrne-O'Brian, as he was commonly called, whose skeleton, now in the museum of the College of Surgeons, is eight feet high-is not quite two feet in length: the longest tibia now sent is four inches and a half longer at least, and we have evidence of a tibia measuring two feet ten inches in length. Nor is it by any means clear that the bones already found are the largest in existence. The variety in size of the remains already sent quite bear out the judicious remarks of Mr. Williams, and it is difficult to deter Professor Owen pointed out to us the strong resemblance of the pelvis of Dizornis to that of the Bustard. Amb.,' v., p. 63, t. 34, f. 2 and 3, by the name of Funis This plant was first described by Rumphius, Herb. uncatus angustifolius,' but the process of preparing the extract was first fully described by Dr. C. Campbell, one of the early medical officers of the station of Bencoolen, who paid considerable attention to the useful plants of the neighbourhood. He states that it is chewed by the Malays mingled with betel-leaf and areca-nut in the same way that catechu is used on the continent of India, and was solicitous that a trial should be made of its power in tanning. The preparation he describes as simple: the young shoot and leaves are shred and bruised in water for some hours, until a feculum is deposited: this, inspissated in the sun to the consistence of a paste, is thrown into moulds of a circular form, and in this state the gambier is brought to market.' In this mode Dr. C. saw it prepared in his journey to CochinChina, at a small village where the sultan of Moco had established a colony for carrying on the manufacture to a considerable extent. Dr. Roxburgh states that in other parts to the eastward of the Bay of Bengal he learned that the process is carried on by boiling the leaves and young shoots; evaporating the decoction by fire and the heat of the sun. When sufficiently inspissated, it is spread out thin, and cut into little square cakes and dried.' Marsden says (Hist. of Sumatra, p. 243), that gambier is a substance Mr. Lyell has just read to the Geological Society of London a most interesting paper on these fossil footsteps from materials collected by him in America. Dr. Mantell has also called attention to some from the Weald, |