96 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Phalanges/'- — Those recovered were four ungual phalanges,! 



and niost of the bones of one foot. 

 Bibs. I — About fifteen ribs, more or less perfect. 



Passing over the remains of still-existing flying-birds, a 

 list of which will be given at the end of this paper, we will 

 next take a very important group of Ealline birds in which 

 the power of flight is feeble, if not altogether lost, and which 

 contains some of the most interesting forms included in the 

 New Zealand ornis. 



Notornis. 



One of the forms, which some of us have been permitted to 

 see in the flesh is Notornis mantelli of Owen, or Notornis 

 hochstetteri of Meyer, otherwise known as the takahe. 

 Perhaps it is the fact that we have actually evidence, from 

 living specimens, of its plumage and appearance, that gives it 

 quite a popular interest, to say nothing of the actual value as 

 a museum specimen. 



The cave yielded the remains of three of these birds, two of 

 the skulls and the set of limb-bones being nearly complete, one of 

 the skulls being in an exceptionally fine state of preservation. 



I have given a table of measurements below, by which 

 it will be seen that the measurements of the principal bones 

 closely agree with those of Von Meyer and Professor Parker, 

 and differ largely from Professor Owen's Waingongoro speci- 

 mens, thereby supporting the idea that there must have been 

 some error in the determination of some of the type bones, or 

 that the North Island species is much larger. The only re- 

 mains that I obtained at Te Aute correspond more nearly with 

 the southern bones than those of Waingongoro. The measure- 

 ments of any bones from the original locality in the North 

 Island would be of great interest. Eecently I obtained three 

 metatarsals from a Maori midden at Longbeach, near Dun- 

 edin, which fact would perhaps indicate that at one time this 

 stately bird was not uncommon, and was valued as food. A 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. vi., pp. 62, 175. Casts of the type bones of 

 Harpacjornis are in the British Museum, and are mentioned in Lydekker's 

 Catalogue, 1891. The only original bone at that date in the Museum collec- 

 tion was one from Waingongoro, in the North Island of New Zealand: 

 "the proximal phalangeal of the second digit of the right manus " 

 (No. 32245/;). On page 26 the notice of the original types states that 

 they are in the Museum at Wellington. The pelvis of H. moorei is the 

 only one of the types in the Colonial Museum ; the rest are in the Canter- 

 bury Museum. 



fTrans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 195, pi. xi., figs. 1, 2. Trans. N.Z. 

 Inst., vol. vi., pp. 62, 63, and 75. Owen, " Extinct Birds of New Zealand," 

 p. 148, pi. cvii., fig. 7. 



\ Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 194, pi. xi., fig. 5. Trans. N.Z. Inst., 

 vol. vi., pp. 62, 63. 



