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Show 1882.] PROF. OWEN ON THE STERNUM OF NOTORNIS. 691 was founded by Prof. Owen in the year 1848; the skull was fully described in the ' Transactions of the Zoological Society,' and the genus referred to the family Rallida as a close ally of Porphyrio. Shortly after he received a femur, a tibia, and a tarso-metatarse of the same bird, as well as a sternum which he, at first, erroneously referred to Notornis, but afterwards (in 1871) recognized as belonging to Aptornis otidiformis "l. Far from the genus Notornis belonging " to a totally different form," the acquisition of additional osteological data confirms its reference, together with the extinct Aptornis, to the Ralline family. Sternum of Notornis mantelli, side view; nat. size. Prof. Parker selects the New-Zealand genera Tribonyx, Porphyrio, and Ocydromus for his illustrations of this affinity of Notornis; and in regard to the sternum, finds the closest resemblance to it in that of Tribonyx : in this " it is of the same proportional length to breadth;" it is shorter relatively than in Porphyrio, but is considerably longer than in Ocydromus ; but its breadth, in proportion to the length of the trunk, is greater than in any of the three smaller Rallines. A s in Tribonyx and the flightless " Wood-hens," the manubrial margin of the sternum of Notornis (fig. 1, p. 690, e) does not develop 1 ' Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute,' vol. xiv. 1882, p. 245. |