Abstract
ALTHOUGH the Ratite birds of New Zealand have been the subject of intense osteological study ever since Owen received the first bone of Dinornis, a considerable interval has elapsed since the Carinate orders received the attention which they warrant. Some twelve years ago Lowe in an extensive memoir1 gave reasons for believing the penguins to have arisen independently from reptilian ancestors, and to have specialized from the beginning as aquatic animals. More recently, the same writer reaffirmed this view in a paper2 in which he discounts the belief that Archœopteryx and Archœornis were birds. In other recent papers Lowe has presented a considerable amount of anatomical data supporting the conclusion that the Ratites are of primitive stock which never possessed the power of flight, nor consequently the keeled sternum3,4. These papers, however, did not deal particularly with evidence from New Zealand, though the deductions are of special interest there. It is therefore certain that zoologists will welcome the two important papers by Dr. W. R. B. Oliver, director of the Dominion Museum, in which he brings to bear upon the problem of the phylogeny of New Zealand birds the evidence he has obtained from a close study of their skulls5,6.
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References
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Archey, G., Bull. Auck. Inst. Mus., 1 (1941).
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FELL, H. AVIAN EVOLUTION IN NEW ZEALAND. Nature 157, 272 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/157272a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/157272a0