Further Notice of Bones of a Fossil Penguin (Palœeudyptes antarcticus, Huxley)

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 5, 1872, Page 438

5. “Further Notice of Bones of a Fossil Penguin (Palœeudyptes antarcticus, Huxley),”* See Trans. N.Z. Inst., Vol. IV., 341. by James Hector, M.D., F.R.S. The author said “when describing the fossil bones of the large penguin, Palœeudyptes antarcticus, Huxley, in a paper published in last year's volume of our Transactions I find that I overlooked two very fine specimens that were in the Museum. They were presented by Mr. Charles Traill, who found them in the white calcareous sandstone which is excavated at Fortification Hill near Oamaru, in Otago, and which is well known as the Oamaru limestone. “The bones are beautifully preserved in this matrix, which has been carefully cleared away to allow of the examination. “They are the left humerus and the coracoid of the right side, and belonged,

I have no doubt, to the same individual bird as the metacarpal figured in last year's volume (Pl. XVII., fig. 3). The humerus is one-sixth of an inch larger than the same bone in the Brighton fossil, and has a more marine appearance. Judging from the proportion of the bones they must have belonged to a bird that had a stature of from six to seven feet.” Captain Hutton said he considered the age of the strata containing these bones to be upper eocene, and that they are therefore among the oldest bird remains known.