OF A GIGANTIC BIRD OF NEW ZEALAND. 31 



cancellated structure is continued through the whole longitudinal extent of the frag- 

 ment, and immediately bounds the medullary cavity of the bone, M'hicli is about one 

 inch in diameter at the middle, and slightly expands towards the extremities. There is 

 no bone of similar size which presents a cancellous texture so closely resembling that 

 of the present bone as does the femur of the Ostrich ; but this structure is interrupted 

 in the Ostrich at the middle of the shaft, where the parietes of the medullary, or rather 

 air-cavity, are smooth and unbroken. From this difference I conclude our extinct bird 

 to have been a heavier and more sluggish species than the Ostrich ; its femur, and 

 probably its whole leg, was shorter and thicker. In no other femur resembUng or ap- 

 proaching in form and size that of which the shaft is here described, have I found 

 superficial reticulate impressions like those above described, except in that of the 

 Ostrich. Tlie Ostrich's femur is subcompressed, while the present fragment is cylin- 

 drical, approaching in this respect nearer to the femur of the Emeu : but its diameter is 

 one-third greater than that of the largest Emeu's femur with which I have compared it. 

 The bones of the extremities of the great Testudo Elephantopus are solid throughout ; 

 those of the Crocodile have no cancellous structure like the present bone. The can- 

 cellous texture of mammiferous bones, again, is of a much finer and more fibrous 

 character than in the fossil. 



Although I speak of the bone under this term, it must be observed that it does not 

 present the characters of a true fossil, being by no means completely mineraUzed : it 

 has probably been on or in the ground for some time, but still retains much of its 

 animal matter. 



The discovery of the relic of a large Struthious bird in New Zealand is one of peculiar 

 interest, on account of the remarkable character of the existing fauna of that island, 

 which still includes one of the most extraordinary and anomalous genera of the Struthious 

 order, and because of the close analogy which the event indicated by the present rehc 

 offers to the extinction of the Dodo of the islands of the Mauritius and Roderigue. So 

 far as a judgement can be formed from a single fragment, it seems probable that the 

 bird to which the above-described bone belonged, presented proportions more nearly 

 resembling those of the Dodo than of any of the existing Struthionida. In the partially 

 explored state of the islands of New Zealand it would be premature to pronounce the 

 large Struthious bird thus indicated to be extinct. The present notice, it is hoped, may 

 tend to accelerate its discovery, if it be still in being, or may stimulate to the collection 

 of the remaining parts of the skeleton, if the species no longer exists. 



