264 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE GENUS DINORNIS. 



the tarso-metatarsal belonging to the largest tibia fortunately prevented this error of 

 exaggeration. 



But since the Cassowary and Apteryx, as compared with the Ostrich and Emeu, 

 combine shorter tarso-metatarsals with their shorter necks, the Dinornis is much more 

 likely to have resembled these birds than the Ostrich in the proportionate length of its 

 neck, and we know that it resembled the Apteryx much more than the Ostrich in the 

 robust proportions of the cervical vertebrae. In the Apteryx, however, the peculiar 

 length of the bill compensates for the relative shortness of the neck ; and until we have 

 proof to the contrary, we must suppose the Dinornis to have had a bill of the ordinary 

 proportions which it presents in the large existing Struthionidce. I, therefore, conceive 

 the Cassowary to offer the best term of comparison by which to calculate the height of 

 the Dinornis. In the skeleton of a full-grown Cassowary' the tarso-metatarsal bone 

 measures eleven inches in length : allowing an inch for the callous integuments beneath 

 its distal articulation, the tibia and femur, articulated at the angles natural in the 

 standing posture, rise to the height of two feet nine inches. From the level of the top 

 of the trochanter to the top of the cranial crest is two feet three inches, and to the base 

 of the crest two feet. We have no evidence that the Dinornis had that peculiar de- 

 fence upon the head, and therefore, from the ground to the summit of the trochanter of 

 the Dinornis giganteus being five feet six inches", from this level to the top of the head, 

 according to the proportion of the uncrested Cassowary, would be four feet, making 

 the total altitude nine feet six inches. Thus, if we take the average of the altitudes of 

 the Dinornis giganteus, as given by the analogies of the existing Struthionida, we are 

 compelled to restrict our ideas of its height in the ordinary upright posture to ten feet. 



The Dinornis struthoides" , with a femur of eleven inches, a tibia of twenty-two inches, 

 and a tarso-metatarsus of twelve inches in length, must have stood, according to the 

 analogies of the Cassowary, six feet nine inches in height ; according to those of the 

 Ostrich, seven feet four inches : we may therefore regard its height to have not exceeded 

 seven feet, or to have been about equal to that of a moderate-sized Ostrich, but of a 

 more robust and stronger build. The fragment of the femur first described by me in 

 1839 belongs to this species. 



The Dinornis didiformis, with a tibia as long as that of the Cassowary, viz. sixteen 

 inches, but with a femur of eight inches and a tarso-metatarsus of only seven inches in 

 length^ would, by the analogy of the Cassowary, be a little under four feet in height, or 

 of intermediate size between the Cassowary and the Dodo. 



The femur of nine inches in length, with similar proportions of the tibia and meta- 

 tarsus, which latter would probably be relatively longer, gives the height of five feet 

 to the species which, from its similarity in size to the Emeu, I have called Dinornis 



' PI. XXX. fig. 2. °- lb. fig. 5. 3 /A. fig. 3. 



■• lb. fig. 1. The tarso-metatarsal bone of the Dinornis didiformis in Mr. Cotton's collection measures seven 

 inches ten lines in length (PL XX a. fig. 2.) ; it is in other respects identical in character with the analogous 

 bones described in the text, and indicates a sexual superiority of size. 



