212 
they returned without having obtained the slightest trace of the ex- 
istence of such an animal ; my son, however, expresses his belief in 
the native accounts, and that if the creature no longer exists, its ex- 
termination is of very recent date. 
In concluding this brief narrative of the discovery of a living ex- 
ample of a genus of birds once contemporary with the colossal Moa, 
and hitherto only known by its fossil remains, I beg to remark, that 
this highly interesting fact tends to confirm the conclusions expressed 
in my communications to the Geological Society, namely, that the 
Dinornis, Palapteryx, and related forms, were coeval with some of 
the existing species of birds peculiar to New Zealand, and that their 
final extinction took place at no very distant period, and long after 
the advent of the aboriginal Maoris. As my son at the date of his 
last letter was about to depart on another exploration of the bone 
deposits of the North Island, I indulge the hope that he will ere long 
have the gratification of transmitting or bringing to England addi- 
tional materials for the elucidation of the extinct and recent faunas of 
New Zealand. 
With much pleasure I resign to Mr. Gould the description of the 
ornithological characters and relations of this, in every sense, rara 
avis, from the Isles of the Antipodes. 
Chester Square, Pimlico, November 1, 1850. 
2. Remarks on Notornis Manrextui. By J. Gouxp, F.R.S. 
(Aves, PI. XXI.) 
Dr. Mantell having kindly placed his son’s valuable acquisition in 
my hands for the purpose of characterizing it in the Proceedings of 
the Society, and of afterwards figuring and describing it in the ap- 
pendix to my work on the ‘ Birds of Australia,’ I beg leave to com- 
mence the pleasing task he has assigned to me. 
The amount of interest which attaches to the present remarkable 
bird is perhaps greater than that which pertains to any other with 
which I am acquainted, inasmuch as it is one of the few remaining 
species of those singular forms which inhabited that supposed rem- 
nant of a former continent—New Zealand, and which have been so 
ably and so learnedly described, from their semi-fossilized remains, by 
Professor Owen; who, as well as the scientific world in general, can- 
not fail to be highly gratified by the discovery of a recent example 
of a form previously known to us solely from a few osteological frag- 
ments, and which, but for this fortunate discovery, would in all pro- 
bability, like the Dodo, have shortly become all but traditional. 
While we congratulate ourselves upon the preservation of the skin, 
we must all deeply regret the loss of the bones, any one of which 
would have been in the highest degree valuable for the sake of com- 
parison with the numerous remains which have been sent home from 
New Zealand. 
Upon a cursory view of this bird it might be mistaken for a gigantic 
kind of Porphyrio, but on an examination of its structure it will be 
