CoLENso. — Status quo. 469 



made application there, and was promptly and courteously 

 supplied with the volume required. 



The Eeviewer's "note" in question is a very long one, 

 amounting to nearly a whole page in quantity and of very small 

 type. It seems to me as if a certain infelicitous animus pervaded 

 it, with particular reference to Dr. Mantell. Such, however, 

 may have arisen from two causes on the part of the Reviewer 

 — the one, his ignorance from not going deeply and fully into 

 the subject ; the other, his omitting to weigh and consider 

 all matters in connection therewith : perhaps others might 

 (in England) be assigned. 



It is, however, given by the Reviewer as being necessary 

 to his statement made in the body of his review, where he 

 says, " All criticisms and misgivings as to the original auda- 

 cious induction from the fragment of the supposed marrow- 

 bone being thus quashed, there remained only atteinpts at 

 detraction from the merit of the discoveri/. One of these 

 amenities Mr. Owen has disposed of in a note to his third 

 memoir, and ice shall devote a note to another." (Loc. cit., 

 p. 404.) 



In order the better to take up and answer the charges 

 made and implied in this long note, and as the book whence 

 I extract it is both old and scarce here among us, and as the 

 matter itself is purely, or mainly, a New Zealand one, I shall 

 necessarily be obliged to quote it pretty largely : — 



" Dr. Mantell, in a paper ' On the Fossil Remains of Birds 

 collected in New Zealand by Mr. Walter Mantell ' {Quarterly 

 Journal of the Geological Society for August, 1848), says, 'I do 

 not deem it necessary to enlarge on the question v.hether the 

 Dinoriiis and Palai)teryx still exist in New Zealand. On this 

 point I would only remark that Mr. Colenso, who was the first 

 observer that investigated the nature of the fossil remains 

 with due care and the requisite scientific knowledge (having 

 determined the struthious affinities of the birds to which the 

 bones belonged, and pointed out their remarkable characters, 

 ere any intelligence could have reached him of the result of 

 Professor Owen's examination of the specimens transmitted to 

 this country), has given in his masterly paper before quoted 

 very cogent reasons for the belief that none of the true moas 

 exist, though it is probable the last of the race was exter- 

 minated by the early inhabitants of those islands.' The 

 emphasis of the italics is Dr. Mantell's ; the paper he cites is 

 from the number of the Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History for August, 1844. In it Mr. Colenso refers to a visit 

 which he made in the summer of 1838 to the tribes of the 

 East Cape district, and to the stories which he heard from 

 them. ... So much for the journey in 1838. In De- 

 cember, 1839, Professor Owen despatched to New Zealand 



