VII. 
The Moas of New Zealand. 
N a paper in vol. xxiv. of the Tvansactions of the New Zealand Institute, 
p. 93, Mr. F. W. Hutton has discussed at great length the 
classification of the Moas of New Zealand. ‘ My work,” he says, 
‘is founded on the measurement of the leg-bones of individual 
birds belonging to sixteen different species, and from these I have 
inferred with considerable certainty the proportion of the leg-bones 
in the other species.” As to the genera, he says, “ the crania of the 
different Moas are quite sufficient to indicate the existence of several 
genera. . . . After reducing the species to order, I find that they fall 
into seven well-defined genera founded on the crania, but generally 
accompanied by characters derived from the pelvis, the sternum, 
the absence or presence of a scapulo-coracoid, and the robustness of 
the leg-bones ”’ (/oc. cit., p. 100). 
In his paper Mr. Hutton gives a table in which the Ratios in the 
Genera are obtained, as regards the long bones, by dividing the length 
by the girth; and for the skull by dividing “‘the breadth at the 
squamosals”” by ‘the height at the basitemporal,” called ratio of 
breadth to height, and “the length from the supra-occipitals to the 
nasals,” by ‘‘the breadth at the squamosals,” to obtain his ratio of 
length to breadth. On examining this table we find that the maxi- 
mum ratio of length to girth of the metatarsus in Dinornis is 3°6, and 
the minimum 2°5; while the maximum and minimum ratios in 
Tylopteryx, 1.e., 3°3 and 2°7, both lie within the maximum and minimum 
assigned to Dinorvnis. The same is the case with their tibia and the 
femora, so that as regards their long bones, those placed in Tylopteryx 
could all have gone into the genus Dinornis, for there is no reason why 
they should be assigned rather to one skull than to another. If we 
take the ratios of the crania (assigned to a great extent, therefore, 
arbitrarily to these limb-bones), the maximum and minimum ratios 
of breadth to height and of length to breadth in Dinoynis fall com- 
pletely within the ratios of Tylopteryx, and those of the sternum and 
pelvis of Tylopteryx fall within the ratios of Dinornis. 
The ratios of the maxima and minima of both the metatarsus 
and the tibia of Palapteryx (the next genus further removed than 
Tylopteryx from Dinornis), fall also within those of the latter genus, 
so that as regards the metatarsi and tibiz of Dinornis, Tylopteryx and 
