542 Transactions. — Geology. 



length of llin., and a circumference at the middle of 5fin., 

 ■which measurements are certainly characteristic of the femur 

 of D. stnithioides ; indeed, this very bone is referred by Mr. 

 Lydekker to D. stnithioides on p. 245, No. 18597, of his 

 catalogue. If, therefore, the name is to be used at all it 

 should be given to the smaller, not the larger, individuals of 

 Dinornis in the North Island. But Owen employed the name 

 only in his provisional notes, and before his paper was pub- 

 lished he broke up his former species into three, and dropped 

 tlie lirst-proposed name altogether. There is therefore no 

 description of D. novcB-zealandice, and by the rules of zoological 

 nomenclature the iiame should be abandoned. At any rate, I 

 think that this is a case in which later authors may respect 

 the wishes of the giver of a name without doing any harm to 

 science. 



During the last four years I have been able to examine at 

 leisure the collection of North Island bones in the Canterbury 

 Museum, and I have also visited the Museums at Auckland, 

 Wanganui, Wellington, and Dunedin as opportunities offered, 

 and have to thank Mr. T. F. Cheeseman, Mr. S. H. Drew, 

 Sir James Hector, Professor T. J. Parker, and Mr. Augustus 

 Hamilton for the facilities they offered me for examining their 

 collections of moa-bones. I have thus been enabled to correct 

 several mistakes, and to clear up most of the obscure points ; 

 but we cannot expect to have the nomenclature quite fixed 

 until the skulls and sterna of several species have been found 

 and correctly determined. 



With regard to the number of species of Dinornis, the 

 material does not exist to work them out in the same way as 

 I did those of Kajnia,''' I have therefore taken the three South 

 Island species as a guide in limiting the North Island species, 

 and, consequently, I have reduced two names of my own 

 making to the rank of synonyms. For my reasons for using 

 the generic term Eurya'pteryic instead of Emcus\ I must 

 refer the reader to my paper on the axial skeleton of the 

 DinornithidcR in Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxvii, p. 158. No 

 doubt it is difficult to decide what should be considered as a 

 sufficient description and what is not sufficient, but I think 

 it will be allowed that when a naturalist makes a new genus 

 he should at least have seen the specimen he names, and that 

 he should point out one, at least, generic character. If this is 

 allowed Eeichenbach's names will not stand. No doubt Sir 

 Julius von Haast made mistakes, as all his successors have done ; 

 but he correctly conceived his three genera — Mcionornis, Eury- 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxviii., p. 627. 



t There is an Emea, Leidy (1848), among the Vermes, which is too 

 near Emeus. 



