SE ee rr 
‘ 
PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
January 11, 1848. 
William Yarrell, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
The following communications were read :— 
1. On THE REMAINS OF THE GIGANTIC AND PRESUMED EXTINCT WING- 
LESS OR TERRESTRIAL Brrps or New ZEALAND (DINORNIS AND 
PALAPTERYX), WITH INDICATIONS OF TWO OTHER GENERA (No- 
rornis AND Nestor). By Paoressor Owen, F.R.S. ere. ere, 
In this memoir (No. III.) Professor Owen confined himself to the 
description and comparison of the bones of the head and beak, form- 
ing part of a very extensive and valuable series collected by Mr. 
Walter Mantell in a deposit of volcanic sand at Waingongoro, North 
Island of New Zealand. After enumerating the principal bones, now 
in the possession of Dr. Gideon Mantell, F.R.S., by whom Prof. Owen 
had been kindly invited to determine and describe them, and stating 
the species to which the majority were referable, viz. Dinornis gigan- 
teus, D. cusuarinus, D. didiformis, D. curtus, Palapteryx ingens, P. 
dromioides, P. geranoides, the author alluded to a form of tarso- 
metatarsal bone, which had supported a strong back-toe, and revem- 
bled the metatarsus of the Dodo, but was shorter and thicker, as 
apparently belonging to the tibia of the species described in a former 
memoir (Zool. Trans. iii. 1843, p. 247), to the Dinornis otidiformis, 
but which must belong to a genus (Apterornis) distinct from both 
Dinornis and Palapteryx. He also stated that the collection contained 
many bones of seals of the genus Arctocephalus, F. Cuv., with a few 
bones of a dog and of the human subject : the latter had been calcined, 
and were probably the remains of some cannibal feast of the natives. 
The uncalcined bones of the seal were in the same state, brittle, 
absorbent, and of a yellowish brown colour, as the bones of the ex- 
tinct birds, with which they were associated and appear to have been 
No. CLXXX.—Proceepines or THE Zoot. Soc. 
