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III Notice of a Fragment of the Femur of a Gigantic Bird of New Zealand. 

 By Richard Owen, Esq., F.R.S., F.Z.S., ^c, i^c. 



Read November 12th, 1839. 



The fragment of bone here described was placed in my hands for examination by 

 Mr Rulefwith the statement that it was found in the island of New Zealand, where 

 the'nativ s have a tradition that it belonged to a bird of the Eagle kmd but which has 

 become extinct, and to which they give the name of " Movie.'' Simdar bones. ,t .s 

 said, are found buried in the banks of the rivers of New Zealand. 



The fragment is the shaft of a femur, with both extremities broken off. The leng h 

 of the fragment is six inches, and its smallest circumference five inches and a half. 

 The exterior surface of the bone is not quite smooth, but is sculptured with very shallow 

 reticulate indentations: it also presents some well-marked intermuscular ridges. One 

 of these ridges (PI. HI. fig- D extends down the middle of the anterior surface of the 

 shaft to about one-third from the lower end. where it bifurcates: two other ridges or 

 line^ aspere, traverse longitudinally the posterior or concave side of the ^^^ft (PI III. 

 fig. 2) ; that next the outer or fibular side of the bone is broad and rugged, the other 



is a mere linear rising. , . , u *t, ^ -.^ 



The first and most obvious idea of the nature of this bone would probably be that it 

 belonged to the human species, or to some of the larger domestic animals introduced 

 into New Zealand by the settlers, for food or draught. It is, however, nearly double 

 the circumference of the femur of an ordinary-sized man ; it also diflers in the gi-eater 

 expansion of the two extremities than would be presented by a section of the same 

 length from any part of the shaft of a human /em«r. and by the mterspace between the 

 wo longitudinal ridges at the posterior part of the bone ; there being a single Unea 

 Lera in the corresponding part of the shaft of the human femur, where likewise the 

 orifice of the ascending canal of the medullary artery is conspicuous. 



From the /emu. of the 0. or Buffalo, the bone from New Zealand differs in its cjdin- 

 drical form : in the 0. it is three-sided, and in the corresponding part of the shaf of 

 TfeLr the trockanter minor .o.A^ be included, of which there is no race in the 

 fossil ■ whilst, on the other hand, both the anterior and the two posterior longitudinal 

 ridges' are abient in the femur of the 0.: the difference between the bone from New 

 Zealand and the shaft of the humerus of an Ox is still more striking. 



Iportion of the shaft of the femur of a Horse or Ass, corresponding - -^^ with 

 that of the bone here described, would have exhibited a portion of the small trochanter, 



