210 Dr. J. Haast on the Extinct 



into so many species is a mistake^ and that future researches 

 will prove that what appeared to Professor Owen as several 

 well-defined species, were, after all, only various stages of age 

 and growth of one and the same kind. However, in this re- 

 spect the collections of the Canterbury Museum bear a strong 

 confirmation of the correctness of the great English ana- 

 tomist's conclusions. We possess, not only young bones of 

 each species, from the chick to the full-grown bird, where (to 

 take only one bone as guide) the tarsal epiphysis of the me- 

 tatarsus is not yet quite anchylosed"^, but we have of each 

 species a series of specimens generally showing two distinct 

 sizes, from which we may conclude that they represent the 

 male and female bird of each species. In some instances (of 

 which I shall speak more fully in the sequel) we possess of 

 each species four distinct sizes, which might represent the two 

 sexes of two distinct but closely allied species. 



Although Professor Owen thinks that the back toe (hallux) 

 was only a small functionless appendage to the foot and that 

 thus the existence or non-existence of such bone is of no con- 

 sequence, and has therefore felt obliged to abandon this grovmd 

 of generic distinction, I am more convinced than ever that it 

 is of great importance, and that the principal division of our 

 extinct struthious birds has to be based upon this, as I be- 

 lieve, constant character f. 



• We possess, amongst others, the leg-bones of a specimen of Dt- 

 nornis maxirmis which is in size only second to the largest bones we 

 have, but in which this immature character in the metatarsus is not yet 

 quite effaced. 



t I formerly believed that an impression observed on the back of one 

 of the first metatarsals of Dhiornis ingens I ever obtained was there for 

 the articulation of the back trochlea ; but since then several more speci- 

 mens of that species have passed through my hands which showed that 

 impression either only faintly or not at all. Dr. Jaeger, of Vienna, arti- 

 culated a small back trochlea with the skeleton of Dinornis ingens found 

 ia the Moa-cave of Nelson; but there is no evidence that the small bone 

 in question belonged to it. In my first paper of measurements, on p. 85 

 of the first volume of the * Transactions ' of the New Zealand Institute, I 

 already pointed to the distinct rough groove which invariahly exists at 

 the back of the metatarsus of a number of species, which I have now 

 ventured to unite under the term Vulnpterygiihr. I may add that a num- 



