22 Transactions. — Zoology. 



the " Novara," Professor Hochstetter, proposed to explore in 

 the marshes and bone-caves, he met everywhere with the most 

 ready concurrence. It was the same with our compatriot, 

 M. Filhol.( 14 ) It is to the good- will and the liberality 

 of our New Zealand fellow-workers — Dr. Julius Haast and 

 Captain Hut ton in particular — that we owe the magnificent 

 skeletons which are now to be seen in our museum. No one 

 will blame me for having given prominence to these facts, or 

 for having here acknowledged publicly the services of the 

 men who appreciate and act so fully up to the principles of 

 scientific brotherhood. 



II. 



This abundance of material enables one to form a very 

 complete idea of what the moas were. It has been possible 

 to reconstruct entire skeletons of several species, and thus to 

 judge of their proportions. On the whole, and in spite of the 

 minor differences which distinguish them, all these birds re- 

 mind us, as I have already said, of the ostrich and cassowary. 

 The head is small ; and nothing belonging to it indicates the 

 existence of a solid casque similar to that which distinguishes 

 another struthious bird, and which has gained for it the name 

 of " the helmet-headed cassowary." The neck is very long, 

 slender at first, thickening progressively towards the trunk, 

 as in the cassowary. The skeleton of the body is robust. 

 The sternum alone is relatively very small and flat. The 

 reduction of this bone, so developed in birds which fly, is ex- 

 plained by the smallness of the wings, which are really 

 rudimentary. On the other hand, all the parts of the skeleton 

 belonging to the posterior members assume exceptional dimen- 

 sions. The sacrum is massive ; the bones of the thigh, leg, 

 and toes have enormous epiphygeal heads, and the bone itself 

 is relatively much thicker than in the living representatives 

 of the type. These characteristics are especially marked in 

 the Palapterycc cleiihantojncs , which was rather smaller than 

 our ostrich ; notwithstanding which, the bones of its foot had 

 a circumference nearly double that of the same member in 

 the ostrich and cassowary. ( 15 ) The stature varied very per- 



shown ; and at the same time he places the cradle of the insular Poly- 

 nesian in the land to which an hypothesis of this kind is least applicable. 

 I have already briefly examined M. Lesson's theory, and shown how, 

 independently of the data furnished by the study of the faunas, the 

 historical records, for which we are indebted partly to the author him- 

 self, but especially to Sic George Grey, Thomson, Shortland, &c, 

 prevent its being accepted (" Hommes Fossiles et Hommes Sauvages," 

 p. 483). I will return to this subject when M. Lesson's book is finished. 



(14.) Hochstetter, loc. cit., p. 182. 



(15.) MM. Filhol and De L'Isle were attached in 1S74 as naturalists 

 to the expedition sent to observe the transit of Venus in the Islands of 



