6 Transactions. — Zoology. 



DESCRIPTION OF PLATES I.-III. 

 [Note. — I am indebted to Mr. John Thomson, B.E., Lecturer on 

 Applied Mechanics in the University, for the photograph from which 

 the plates are taken.] 



Plate I. Dorsal view of the skull of Mesopteryx, species b. (Colonial 



Museum, Wellington.) 

 Plate II. Dorsal view of the cranium of Dlnomis torosus, Hutton. (Mr. 



R. I. Kingsley's collection, Nelson.) 

 Plate III. Dorsal view of the skull of Anomalopteryx didiformis, Owen. 



(Mr. A. Hamilton's collection, Dunedin.) 



[Note. — Professor Parker, writing to Mr. Hamilton from York, in 

 January, 1S93, reports that the famous moa in the York Museum " has 

 got splendid feather-pits on the skull." — Ed.] 



Art. III. — New Species of Moas. 



By Captain F. W. Hutton, F.R.S. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 2nd November, 



1892.] 



Since I wrote my paper on " The Moas of New Zealand," 

 which I read to the Institute last year, 1 have seen Mr. E. 

 Lydekker's valuable Catalogue of the Fossil Birds in the British 

 Museum, and I have also been able to study the whole of the 

 magnificent collection of moa bones in the Canterbury Museum, 

 of which I had formerly seen only a portion. This collection 

 was commenced in 1866 by Sir J. von Haast with bones 

 from Glenmark, and he afterwards added others, principally 

 from Shag Point and Whangarei. Last year, when Mr. H. 0. 

 Forbes was curator, he secured the collection found at Enfield, 

 near Oamaru, and gave the greater part of it to the Museum. 

 Mr. A. Hamilton has also contributed a good collection from 

 the Te Aute Swamp ; and during this year a small number of 

 bones from Hamilton and other places have been obtained by 

 exchange. I am far from having finished my examination of 

 this collection, but, as it has become my duty to arrange and 

 name it, I think it will be advisable to publish at once the 

 changes to which I have been led in my views on the classifi- 

 cation of the moas, as well as to give descriptions of five new 

 species which I think it necessary to make. I have also 

 thought that it would be useful to others if I published the 

 average dimensions of the leg-bones of the moas found at 

 Enfield. 



There is in the Museum an imperfect skeleton of an in- 

 dividual bird the metatarsus of which is similar to the larger 

 of the two described by Sir R. Owen as D. elephantopzts ; but 

 the skull has a pointed beak, and the vertebra? are of a dif- 



