437 RESIDUE OF THE EXTINCT BIRDS OF QUEENSLAND AS YET DETECTED. By C. W. De Vis, M.A., Core. Mem. (Plates xxiii. and xxiv.) Necrastur, n.g., Falconid^e. Proximal end of a right humerus, wanting part of the radial tuberosity and distal portion of the pectoral crest (PI. xxiv., fig. la and 16). The guide to the systematic neighbourhood of this fossil is discoverable in the seat of the insertion of the anterior coracoid ligament on the dorsal aspect of the radial tuberosity (fig. la .4). In the great majority of birds the ligament occupies, and is inserted into, some part of a horizontal groove, which is variously modified in length, depth, width, straightness, and parallelism of its sides. In all these respects, singly or together, it may be studied in the Psittaci, Strigidce (mostly), Passeres (mostly), Coracidce, Columbce, Otididce, Grallce, Herodiones, and Anseres. Occasionally it is reduced, as in the Rails, to two short converging walls enclosing a small pit close to the anterior edge of the bone, or to some such remnant of its full development in the Psittaci. In the minority it is merely a more or less irregular depression of variable depth and definition, affording on the whole, so little aid to the investigator that by it alone he could hardly distinguish safely between the eagle and pelican. But happily it assumes in many of the Falconidca a peculiarly distinctive form, one on which fancy bestows a certain crude resemblance to the footstep of a horse trotting on soft clay. This is best exemplified in Haliaettts leucog aster, wherein it may be observed as a subtriangular pit
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