CoLENSO. — Status quo. 471 



Zealand — though made in a British colony, and announced to 

 the scientific world by an eminent British physiologist, has not 

 laitherto been brought under the immediate notice of the Geo- 

 logical Society of London The first relic of this 



kind was made known to European naturalists by Professor 

 Owen in 1839. It consisted of the shaft of a femur, or thigh- 

 bone, but a few inches long, and with both its extremities 

 wanting ; and this fragment so much resembled in its general 

 appearance the marrow-bone of an ox as actually to have been 

 regarded as such by more than one eminent naturalist of this 

 metropolis. And if I were required to select from the numerous 

 and important deductions of palaeontology the one which of 

 all others presents the most striking and triumphant instance 

 of the sagacious application of the principles of the correlation 

 of organic structm'e enunciated by the illustrious Cuvier — the 

 one that may be regarded as the cxperimcntum crucis of the 

 Cuvierian philosophy — I would unhesitatingly adduce the in- 

 terpretation of this fragment of bone. I know not among all 

 the marvels whicli palaeontology has revealed to us a more 

 brilliant example of successful philosophical induction — ^the 

 felicitous prediction of genius enlightened by profound scientific 

 knowledge. The specimen was put into Professor Owen's 

 hands for examination, . . . and from this mere fragment 

 the Hunterian Professor arrived at the conclusion ' that there 

 existed, and perhaps still exists, in those distant islands a race 

 of struthious birds of larger and more colossal stature than the 

 ostrich or any other known species.' . . . In 1843 the cor- 

 rectness of these views was confirmed in every essential par- 

 ticular by a large collection of bones obtained by the Eev. W. 

 Williams, and transmitted to the Dean of Westminster ; and 

 still further corroborated by another interesting series brought 

 to England in 1846 by Percy Earl, Esq., and by the collec- 

 tion which forms the immediate subject of this communica- 

 tion." (L.c, p. 226.) 



Surely this language is clear enough. Dr. Mantell, the 

 Vice-President of the Geological Society, voluntarily and 

 largely gives to Professor Owen the highest possible meed of 

 scientific praise for Jiis being the first to announce to the 

 scientific world at Home his great discovery. 



After this. Dr. Mantell goes fully into the large and rare 

 collection of moa-bones he had then recently received from his 

 son here in New Zealand, containing 900 specimens. And, in 

 his doing so, he further says, " I will now describe in general 

 terms the most interesting specimens in the collection formed 

 by my son ; the anatomical details, and the important physio- 

 logical inferences resulting therefrom, will be laid before the 

 Zoological Society by Professor Owen, to whom, as a tribute 

 of respect due for his masterly interpretation of the bones pre- 



