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Show 1903.] ON A FOSSIL OSTRICH FROM THE ISLAND OF SAMOS. 203 aware, the only instances of structures which can be regarded as at all approaching this nature are the carpal bristles of the D assies and the carpal callosities of Wart-Hogs, the latter of which, as already mentioned, are considered to be of modern origin. No trace of any structure comparable with the hind-callosity of the Horse has, so far as I am aware, ever been detected on the tarsus of any of the above-mentioned Ungulates. If an objection of this nature be regarded as fatal to the gland-tlieory (or sense-organ-theory, for I regard the two as practically identical) of the origin of the equine callosities, it will, I think, be still more so to the foot-pad hypothesis, since short-limbed and polydactyle mammals ought to have retained traces of ancestral foot-pads for a greater period than long-limbed monodactyle forms like the Equiclce. In conclusion, I may state that it has been my object, not so much to attempt to show what the equine callosities represent, as to demonstrate, from palaeontological considerations, the improbability of their being vestigial foot-pads. P.S.-I am informed that if a callosity be pared down, and a finger moistened with the resulting exudation held to a horse's nose, the animal will follow anywhere. If this be true, it affords strong testimony in favour of the gland-theory. 4. Note on some Remains of Struthio haratlieodoris Maj. of the Island of Samos. By R u d o l f M a r t in , ot Basel University.1 [Received February 11, 1903]. (Text-figures 30-34.) In the Catalogue of the collection of Mr. Barbey at Yalleyres s./Orbe (Switzerland), published in 1894 by Dr. Forsyth Major 2, besides a great number of mammals there is mentioned the femur of a ratite bird, which, no doubt, belonged to the genus Struthio (Dr. Major could scarcely find any difference). Dr. Major, considering the geological age of the deposits in which the bone had been found (Upper Miocene), and recognising that it belonged to a form different from the recent Ostrich, created the new species Struthio karatheodoris. Some time ago, Dr. Major received the fragment of a pelvis from the Museum of the Vienna University (found in the same place as the femur), which probably belonged to the same species, and which is the subject of the following remarks. I have to thank Dr. Major for having entrusted me with the study of this pelvis and for having placed two photographs of the 1 Communicated by Dr. C. I. F o r s y th M a jo r , F.Z.S. 2 Le Gisement ossifere de Mitylini et Catalogue d'ossements tossiles recueillis a Mitylini etc., Lausanne, 1894. |