Scientific Intelligence — Zoology, 3S? 



5. Wingless Birds of New Zealand, — Professor Owen lately gave 

 a communication to the Royal Institution of London, on the Wingless 

 Birds of New Zealand. In the year 1839 there arrived in this 

 country, from New Zealand, a fragment of the shaft of a bone of 

 some unknown animal, supposed to have existed in those islands 

 during the historical period. From this single relic, deficient in 

 those terminal processes to which the zoologist looks for a clue to his 

 researches into the probable forms and habits of extinct animals. 

 Professor Owen inferred that this bone must have belonged to a 

 struthious bird, about the size of an ostrich, but resembling the ex- 

 tinct Dodo of the Mauritius. Since that time, other bones, belonging 

 to birds of the same family, but of different species, have reached 

 England, and established, beyond all doubt, the justice of Mr 

 Owen's inference, made four years ago, on such scanty data. The 

 great point of Mr Owen's present communication, was to explain 

 the process of reasoning which led him to this result. Looking into 

 the interior of the piece of bone he had to examine, he observed, that 

 its cancellous structure was less fine and fibrous than that of any 

 of the long bones of a mammiferous animal, — that it was still less 

 like the bone of a reptile, which is generally solid throughout, — that 

 with respect to the remaining order of the animal kingdom, the 

 birds, the structure of this bone, its density and size, proved that, 

 though the bono of a bird, it could not belong to any that were or- 

 ganized for flight. Mr Owen also remarked, that although a suffi- 

 cient supply of various bones of the leg and foot of this bird had 

 subsequently been received by him, to enable him to characterize 

 several species, there had not appeared any bones of wings. Hence, 

 he concluded, that this bird must have resembled — only on a gigan- 

 tic scale— the Apteryx (the wingless bird) of Australia. Mr Owen 

 called attention to a specimen of Apteryx, lent by the Council of 

 the Zoological Society. He noticed the long beak of this bird, 

 resembling the bill of a woodcock, its legs, like those of a fowl, at- 

 tached to a trunk like that of a cassowary ; and then appealed against 

 the reasoning which disputed the reality of the Dodo's existence, be- 

 cause the same sort of body and legs was found on that bird, united 

 with a beak resembling that of a vulture. Mr Owen stated, that, 

 on visiting the Hague, he saw there a picture, painted soon after the 

 Dutch had become possessed of the island of Mauritius, and in a 

 corner of this picture was a figure of the Dodo, extremely small, but 

 so elaborately finished, as to enable a zoologist to characterize its 

 species. Mr Owen then offered some speculations as to the exten- 

 sive distribution of the struthious birds over the surface of the earth 



