Parker. — Xutes on a Skeleton of Notornis. 79 



Museum, procured by Mr. W. Mantell in 1849, and the skin and 

 skeleton of a bird caught alive near Lake Te Anau in 1879. I 

 had the honour of exhibiting the two latter at a meeting of this 

 Institute on 6th April, 1881, and, at a subsequent meeting, of 

 reading a paper on the skeleton.* Both skin and skeleton were 

 sent to England for sale, and were purchased by the authorities 

 of the Dresden Museum for £110. 



Besides the above-mentioned specimens, the only remains of 

 Xotornis of which I am aware are the fossil bones in the British 

 Museum, upon which the genus was founded by Owen.t 



The Te Anau specimen of 1879 naturally attracted a good 

 deal of attention in Europe. It was exhibited by Professor 

 Newton at a meeting of the Zoological Society, on 17th January, 

 1882,| and subsequently furnished the subject of a paper by 

 the first describer of the genus, Professor (now Sir Bichard) 

 Owen. || After its purchase for the Dresden Museum, the 

 skeleton was briefly described by the Director, Dr. A. B. 

 Meyer, his account being accompanied by a series of measure- 

 ments, and by four beautifully executed autotypes. § The 

 latter, I have had framed for exhibition in this Museum, and 

 am thus enabled to exhibit them to-night for comparison with 

 the actual skeleton. 



The bones which form the subject of the present com- 

 munication were found, (as stated by Mr. Henry in a letter to 

 Mr. Melland,) in a small patch of scrub, about half a mile to 

 the east of Patience Bay — the southernmost arm of Lake Te 

 Anau. The surrounding district consists of low-lying fern and 

 tussock country, and the patch of scrub in which the bones were 

 found contains a few mapau (Pittosporum temdfolium) and 

 "law T yer" (Rubus australis) bushes; some miko-miko (Aristotelia 

 racemosa) and manuka (Leptuspermum scoparium and L. ericoides), 

 and an acre or two of rushes (Juncus, various species). Within 

 a hundred yards of the scrub a small creek arises, and dis- 

 charges into the lake. The pelvis, vertebrae, etc., all lay on 

 an area not larger than a sheet of writing paper, but one of the 

 leg bones was found thirty feet away, quite outside the scrub, 

 and other bones six feet from the main heap. One would 

 imagine that rats caused this dispersal of the bones, and the 

 consequent incompleteness of the skeleton. 



Mr. Henry also states that the skeleton of 1879 was found 

 at the edge of a patch of bush, about 200 acres in extent (locally 

 known as the "Wilderness"), situated immediately to the north 



* " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," vol. xiv. (1881), pp. 245, 561, and 562. 

 t " Extinct Birds of N.Z.", pp. 173, 196, 199, and 436 ; and " Trans. Zool. 

 Soc," hi., p. 366; iv., p. 12; viii., p. 119; and vii., pp. 369 and 373. 

 J "Proceedings Zool. Soc," 1882, p. 97. 

 !! Ibid., p. 689. 

 § Abbildungen von Vogel-Skeletten, iv. and v. Lieferung. Dresden, 1883. 



