196 Scientific Intelligence — Zoology. 



principles. Instead of analysing, their process has been one of syn- 

 thesis. Their attention has been directed to the grouping of the 

 twigs, — as if they were thus to find their natural connexions, with- 

 out even looking for assistance towards the branches, or the trunk 

 that gave them forth. But the simile is inadequate ; the labour 

 lost has been greater than even this supposes. For in the grown tree 

 of animal structure, parts, once essentially the same, have not only 

 diverged in their development, and become elaborated into very dif- 

 ferent forms, — but, as before said, perform very different functions 

 also. Hence a positive in addition to a negative source of error. 

 But what other course could naturalists have taken \ Truly none : 

 their ' circumstance' allowed no other. It is only now that a way 

 is beginning to be opened, by which it may, by and by, be possible 

 to proceed in an opposite direction, viz., from trunk to branches and 

 to twigs. This, if ever accomplished, must be by means of the 

 History of Development or Embryology.'' 



" We have thought it right to bring forward Dr Barry's claim as 

 the first distinct enunciator of this doctrine, because we perceive 

 that its truth is being more and more generally recognised, and that 

 it must ultimately become the foundation of all philosophical zoology." 



23. On the Fossil Bones of the Ancient Birds of New Zealand, (in 

 letters, dated January 19 and 26, 1848, from Dr G. A. Mantell 

 to Professor Silliman Senior. — The collection of eight hundred 

 fossil bones, — all the bones of birds (with a single exception, the 

 femur of a quadruped, probably a dog), is the most interesting and 

 extensive that has been sent from New Zealand to Europe, and pro- 

 bably from any part of the world. Dr Mantell submitted the bones 

 to tlie examination of Professor Owen, who made the subject his 

 own by his former beautiful Memoirs on the Dinornis Apteryx. Mr 

 Owen is expected to draw up a I'cport on the bones, for the Zoolo- 

 gical Society. He had already described the crania of the Dinornis, 

 which were objects of great importance, but no traces of the mandi- 

 bles had been previously discovered. The collections include three 

 distinct types. The beak of the Dinornis is like a cooper's adze, 

 and seems designed to tear up the roots of plants ; the base of the 

 skull is prolonged below the foramen magnum in a very extraor- 

 dinary manner, for the attachment of powerful muscles, by which 

 the mandibles were acted upon. 



Palapteryx (Paleo-apteryx) is a new genus, more allied to the 

 Apteryx than is the Dinornis. The Notornis (the term signifying 

 Southern Bird) is a new genus of Rallidaj, and related to a living 

 genus of nocturnal parrot, a genus still existing in New Zealand. 



The state of pi-eservation of the bones is remarkable ; they are in 

 this respect, wholly unlike those formerly sent. They are light and 

 porous, and of a delicate fawn colour, resembling the bones from the 

 caverns of Germany. They were found embedded in a loose sand, 

 the detritus of earthy augitic rocks, much resembling the loose al- 



