IQQ Transactions. — Zoology. 



apterysidce— and gave several generic characters by which they 

 mi-ht be distinguished, some of which were good, but most of 

 the'm quite incorrect. In fact, at that time the species had not 

 been accurately made out,- and consequently a correct groupmg 

 of them was impossible. Sir E. Owen subsequently reviewed 

 the whole question, and came to the conclusion that it was 

 best for the present to retain all thespeciesm the single genus 

 Dinornis, ^^nd this he has done in his "Extinct Birds of New 



Zealand," 1879. . • f j-u„ a;( 



But undoubtedly the differences m the crania of the dif- 

 ferent moas are quite sufficient to indicate the existence of 

 several genera; the difficulty hitherto m defining these genera 

 has been that the cranial differences did not appear to go with 

 the other characters. But the extensive material examined 

 by me has shown that in many cases the heads have been 

 placed on the wrong birds, the exceptions being D. ^^^^^^s «s 

 L>. struthioides, D. parvus, D. didmns ,^nd D. gravis; and afte 

 reducing the species to order I find that they all into seven 

 well-defined genera, founded on the crania, but genei-ally ac- 

 companied b| characters derived from the pelvis, the steniun, 

 the absence or presence of a scapulo-coracoid, and the robust- 

 ness of the leg-bones. 



Species. 

 Nineteen species have already been made by Sir R Owen, 

 and one by Sir Julius von Haast, the specific characters 

 be ng based on the bones of the leg. However, only four of 

 thesf species-viz., D. viaximus, D. dulmus, D. parvus and 

 D m.c7ii-have been described from the bones of a single in- 

 dividual. In all other cases, the different bones of the leg had 

 to be put together conjectm-ally from collections sent to Eng- 

 and ardifferent times between 1843 and 1872 and so it is no 

 wonder that many of the bones were wrongly placed. Foi 

 Txample, the examination of the legs of individual birds has 

 shmvn that D. alius, D. ingens, D. gracilis, D. struthioides, 

 D qeranoides, D. rheides, D. crassus D. casuarmus, ^nd D 

 gml, of Owen, are all made up of bones belonging to more 

 than one species In these cases I have taken the metatarsus 

 Is the type of the species, except with J9. ^«^en. where the 

 tfbia forms the type. These individual legs, together with a 

 coXarisin oTa ?4y large number of bones from all par so 

 Ne7zealand, has enabled me, I believe to ^oi^'ect most of the 

 er?ors and to reduce the species to order. The most difccult 

 bones are the femora. Indeed, with our present limited know- 

 leTge it is sometimes impossible to refer them with confidence 

 to the right species. 



• See, however, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 70, line 9 from top. 



