OCR Text |
Show 1891.] MR. R. LYDEKKER ON A LARGE EXTINCT STORK. 477 Miocene (Oligocene) of Allier under the name of Pelargopsis magnus (correctly magna). This species was of the approximate size of Ciconia alba; the genus being distinguished, among other characters, by certain features of the tarso-metatarsus, such as the larger relative size of the third trochlea, the narrower groove between the third and fourth trochlea?, and the higher position of the foramen in that groove. Again, the tibio-tarsus is more compressed at its distal extremity, and has no intercondylar tubercle near the bridge over the extensor tendons. At the time of writing the British Museum ' Catalogue of Fossil Birds' I accepted the name Pelargopsis, having overlooked the circumstance that it is preoccupied by Glogerl for a genus of Alcedinidce ; I accordingly propose to replace this name by Pelar-godes. In another part of the work cited Milne-Edwards incidentally refers to a second Stork from Allier, under the name of Argala arvernensis. There is, however, no reference to the specimens on which this determination is based, and the name must accordingly be regarded as a M S . one; and the evidence for the existence of Leptoptilus (Argala) in these deposits is therefore at present unavailable. In the ' British Museum Catalogue of Fossil Birds ' 2 I described and figured the distal part of a tarso-metatarsus belonging to a Stork of somewhat larger size than Pelargodes magnus (as 1 will now call it), under the name of Propelargus cagluxensis, that specimen having been obtained from the Upper Eocene (Oligocene) Phosphorites of France. At the same time I recorded the distal extremity of a tibio-tarsus and the proximal end of a tarso-metatarsus from Allier which I thought might very probably belong to Propelargus, and possibly to the same species as the one from the Phosphorites. These specimens indicated birds of the approximate size of Leptoptilus javanicus, which is considerably larger than Ciconia alba. The foregoing summary epitomizes, I believe, our knowledge of the larger Ciconiidce of the lower European Tertiaries. Recently Mr. A. Smith Woodward put into m y hands the right coracoid and the left metacarpus of a large bird from the Lower Miocene of St. Gerand- Le-Puy, Allier, which had been recently obtained for the British Museum. These specimens, which apparently belonged to one individual, are represented in the drawing (p. 478). I at once recognized that they indicated a large Stork ; and on comparing them with the corresponding bones of Ciconia alba found that they considerably exceeded that species in size. The right coracoid, of which the ventral aspect is represented in figure A, agrees so closely in contour with the corresponding bone of Ciconia alba, that it appears impossible to find characters by which it can be generically distinguished. Its total length is 0,112, 1 Handbuch d. Naturgeschichte, p. 338 (1842). 2 Pages 65, 66. |