AVES CURS011ES. 295 



The whole of this third part of vol. iii is occupied with the above-named 

 and highly important treatise of Professor Owen. The brief remarks con- 

 cerning the discovered bones, already mentioned in the course of the lire- 

 ceding year, are here investigated in full detail, and illustrated by thirteen 

 excellently designed plates. To my former account I am now enabled to 

 add the following, as derived from the present treatise. As regards the pel- 

 vis, the Diuornis departs furthest from the struthious type, and forms the 

 nearest transition to the three-toed Grallse or wading Birds. Although no 

 bones belonging to the superior or alary members have hitherto been trans- 

 mitted from abroad, still the remaining parts of the skeleton admit of our 

 conjecturing that the power of flight was wanting to the Dinornis. Owen 

 now distinguishes five species : Dinornis giijm/tr/ix, ///yo/.y, struthoides, dro- 

 .iimoides and didiformis. The stature of D. yiyanteus he estimates at 10 

 feet, that of D. ingcns at 9, of D. struthoides not above 7, of D. dromccoides 

 at 5, and of D. didiformis at somewhere under 4 feet. Upon comparing the 

 bones of the extremities with the foot-prints found by Hitchcock in new red 

 sandstone in Connecticut Valley, and called, from his having ascribed them to 

 a gigantic bird, Ornithichnites r/it/anteus, the pedal impressions of the Diuoruis 

 giganteus are found to be still larger. According to Taylor's chemical ana- 

 lysis, there are in a fresh tibia of the Ostrich 25 "51 and in a femoral bone 

 of the Dinornis didiformis 25 '99 parts in a 100 of organic substance. Day 

 analysed the thigh-bone of the Ostrich and Dinornis struthoides, and fou 

 in the former 34?'S6 parts of organic and 65'G5 inorganic matter; in 

 Dinornis 37'36 of organic matter and G2 - 94 of inorganic. The overplus of 

 animal matter in the latter depends upon its femur being only a medullary 

 bone, while in the Ostrich it contains air. Prom this chemical character of 

 the bones, Owen concludes that the extinction of the Dinoruis is of propor- 

 tionately recent date. 



To the above treatise we append the notices given by 

 W. Colenso in the Ann. of Nat. Hist, xiv, p. 81, concerning 

 the Moa, as the Dinornis is styled by the natives, and 

 which were derived from investigations conducted on the very 

 place and spot where its relics were found. 



Partly in company with the missionary Williams (through whom Owen 

 has obtained most of the bones), and partly alone, he instituted everywhere 

 inquiries among the natives. They were all indeed acquainted by current 

 hearsay with this gigantic Bird, but none of them had obtained a sight of it. 

 Colenso procured the bones only from river-beds, and is of opinion that the 

 Moa was either extinguished prior to, or contemporaneously with, the immi- 

 gration of the present race of New Zealauders. 



