346 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE GENUS DINORNIS. 



these interesting remains, for which science is so much indebted to the exertions of his 

 enterprising son. 



The bones are in a different state from that of any which I had before seen : instead 

 of the deep brown tint, tenacity and heaviness of those from Wairoa, Waipu, and the 

 beds of the streams that run east of the volcanic chain of Tongariro, which had been 

 transmitted by the Ven. Archdeacon Williams, the Rev. W. Colenso and the Rev. Mr. 

 Cotton, in 1843, they are yellowish-grey or fawn-coloured, light and fragile, with their 

 articular surfaces entire and smooth and all their ridges and processes singularly sharp 

 and perfect ; most of the fractures being recent and some evidently the result of 

 accident in the transport : they are all, however, more or less absorbent from the loss 

 of animal matter'. They have a different aspect also from those remains obtained by Dr. 

 Mackellar and Mr. Percy Earl from the submerged deposits of the shore at Waikewaite 

 in the Middle Island ; these are of whitish-grey colour, and though light and friable 

 retain more elasticity, and more of the animal matter ; they do not stick to the tongue. 



In a note dated December 23rd, which Dr. Mantell addressed to me, he writes, 

 " My son obtained the greater part from fissures and caves, imbedded in a loose volcanic 

 sand and ash :" and in a subsequent communication (December 25th, 1847) Dr. Mantell 

 states, " the greater part were obtained from Waingongoro " (North Island) " in loose 

 volcanic sand." But in a letter which Col. Wakefield has addressed to J. R. Gowen, 

 Esq., dated " WeUington, New Zealand, 12th August 1847," he writes that the 

 " Moa's bones transmitted to England by Mr. Mantell were collected by him between 

 Wanganui and Taranake at the mouth of the river ' Wanganui '." 



In proceeding to determine and classify the specimens at the request of Dr. 

 Mantell, I had the same gratification, as at the first inspection of the series of bones 

 brought home in 1846 by Mr. Percy Earl, in recognising the specific characters, 

 which had been deduced in the first instance from a few specimens or fragments of 

 bone, perfectly repeated in numerous examples of entire femora, tibiae and metatarsi. 

 Thus after setting apart, of — 



Femora. TibicE. Fihtla. Metatarsi. 



Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. 



Dinornis casuarinus 1 1' 1 1 1 1 1 1 



didiformis . .... 9 5 3 2 3 3 1 2 



curtus 5 3 8 8 2 3 



Palapteryx dromio'ides .... 4 7 



geranotdes^ 10 5 889476 



there remained of the Palapteryx ingens 1 i i i n o i 



var. robustus J " 



' Some portions of a human skeleton, including a clavicle, part of a radius, and a few phalangeal bones, 

 together with half the lower jaw of a Dog, transmitted with the birds' remains, have been reduced by heat to 

 their constituent white earthy matter. Not any of the bones of the Dinornis are in this state, though some have 

 been blanched or partially blanched by exposure. 



2 An unpublished species defined from certain leg-bones sent home by the Rev. Mr. Cotton since the 

 communication of my former Memoir, Part U. 



