PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE GENUS DINORNIS. 319 



the sternum is developed, as in other Struthionida;, from two lateral centres, whence the 

 ossification radiates, and converging to the middle line, there produces confluence of the 

 primitively separate halves. We cannot doubt, from the close conformity of the ster- 

 num of the adult Dinornis with that of the Apteryx, that it was developed in the same 

 way, and not, as in the Gallinacea, from more numerous separate centres, notwith- 

 standing the rasorial proportions of the metatarsus. 



Bones of the Extremities. 



Although the title of a former Memoir* referred to five species of Dinornis, deter- 

 mined from the osseous remains transmitted by Archdeacon Williams from the North 

 Island of New Zealand, a sixth species was indicated in the Memoir itself, under the 

 name of dromioides, by the characters of a femurf, the only bone of the extremities 

 referable to that species which I at that time possessed. 



I have since received from the North Island, by the kindness of Mr. Cotton, two other 

 femora, agreeing in size and characters with the one referred to the Dinornis dromioides, 

 together with two tibiae and a metatarsal bone, of a size in respect of breadth of extre- 

 mities and circumference of shaft suited to those femora, and differing from the homo- 

 logous bones in all other known species of Dinornis by being more slender in proportion 

 to their length and longer in relation to the femur ; thereby approaching more nearly to 

 the proportions of the leg-bones in the Emeu and other large existing Struthionida, and 

 confirming my conjecture founded upon the characteristic proportions of the femur 

 itselfj. 



The species which I have called Dinornis ingens was founded principally on the cha- 

 racters of a femur and tibia. 1 have since received a tarso-metatarsal bone from the 

 North Island, through the kindness of Mr. Colenso, and from the Middle Island there 

 have been transmitted femora, tibiee and tarso-metatarsals of apparently a more robust 

 variety of Dinornis ingens, together establishing most satisfactorily the former existence 

 of at least one species of Dinornis of the stature of nine feet. 



The richest accessions to the osteology of this extraordinary genus of wingless birds 

 have been made by Mr. Percy Earl, an enterprising naturalist, to whose exertions 

 zoology is indebted for the recovery of the most perfect remains from the soil of New 

 Zealand. These were discovered by Mr. Earl in a turbary deposit on the sea-coast of 

 the Middle Island, near the settlement of Waikawaite. The deposit is overflowed by 

 the sea at high-tides, and had been covered by a bed of sand and shingle ; but this bed 



* Zoological Transactions, vol. iii. part 3, 1844, p. 235. 



t "The femur of nine inches in length, with similar proportions of the tibia and metatarsus, which latter 

 would probably be relatively longer" — (the comparison is with Dinornis didi/ormis) — " gives the height of five 



feet to the species, which from its similarity of size to the Emeu I have called Dinornis dromioides." lb. p. 264, 



pi. 22. } lb. p. 252. 



VOL. III. PART IV. 2 X 



