378 NATURAL SCIENCE. May, 
that of Mr. Lydekker’s catalogue,—a volume which had already 
reached the Colony before the reading of his paper, in which the 
classification is based on the type material in the British Museum, 
instead of adding to the already almost hopelessly involved synonymy 
of the Dinornithide, as his paper before the New Zealand Institute 
unfortunately does. 
As to the age of the oldest fossil Moa bones found in New 
Zealand, Mr. Hutton, I find, dissents from my opinion as to the 
geological horizon in which the remains were found, which he is, of 
course, entitled to do. In stating, however, that ‘‘ this conclusion was 
not arrived at by a re-examination of the sections at Mount Horrible 
and the Pareora, Mr. Forbes merely went to a quarrynear Timaru, and, 
with ‘little doubt,’ identified a ‘rough red shingle,’ which he did not 
even see i situ, with the gravels of the alluvial fans of the Canterbury 
Plains,’ Mr. Hutton has affirmed what is not only quite incorrect, 
but what could not possibly be within his knowledge. He could not 
know how often I examined the geological structure of the region, or 
with what care, or what I have seen or not seen in situ. The shingle 
below the clay (or so-called loess) underlying the lava-bed, by which 
the age of the section is determined, I practically did see in situ on my 
first visit, and having subsequently re-examined the district, I have 
assured myself of the correctness of my previous observations and 
opinion. JI shall, however, most willingly admit that I am mistaken 
as to the age of the strata in which these Dinoynis remains have been 
found as being other than ‘‘ newer Pliocene or even Pleistocene,” so 
soon as the officers of the New Zealand Geological Survey—who are 
really the only competent referees in the case—shall have assigned to 
these gravels a different age. Notwithstanding Mr. Hutton’s doubt as 
to the correct identification of the avian remains in the same bed in 
association with those of the Moa, I can, without hesitation, re-affirm 
that the bone I determined as Aptervyx austvalis, and figured in the 
Tyansactions of the New Zealand Institute (vol. xxiii., pl. xxxvi., 
p. 368), really belonged to that bird. The bone, of which the drawing 
(for which I am responsible) is unfortunately not so good as a better 
draughtsman might have made, was, as I there pointed out, 
somewhat distorted by heat, but otherwise its identity was un- 
mistakable. I am glad to find that Mr. Hutton admits ‘if it had 
been correct that bones of a living species of Kiwi occurred with 
them [the Moa-bones], it would have been strong evidence in favour 
of the bed being younger than Miocene.” His observation that the 
figure in the plate illustrating my paper more resembles the femur 
of Aptoynis surprises me, for the bones in the two birds are very dis- 
similar in form and strikingly different in size. The bone figured by 
me is represented of the natural size, and even in so poor a figure, 
the delineation of its internal structure recalls at once the section 
of an Apteyyx femur. 
Mr. Hutton, in the same paper, discusses the question, How long 
