Page:Rothschild Extinct Birds.djvu/205

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171



FAMILY DIDIDAE.(L.)

Includes very large and massively-built forms, agreeing with the Columbidae in the truncation of the angle of the mandible, but with the extremity of the cranial rostrum strongly hooked. They were totally incapable of flight, the wing-bones being small, the carina of the sternum aborted, and the caracoidal grooves shallow and separated from one another.

Two genera: Didus and Pezophaps.



DIDUSLINN.

Skull with a very large and deeply hooked rostrum, and the nasal and maxillary processes of the praemaxilla converging anteriorly; the front region inflated into a sub-conical prominence of cancellous tissue. Neck and feet shorter than in the succeeding genus. Delto-pectoral crest of humerus distinct.

Two species: Didus cucullatus and Didus solitarius.