558 Geological Society: Anniversary Address, 1843. 
to one of the older secondary rocks. However this point may be 
determined, and I will presently allude to it, the great question re- 
mained to be settled ; how induce us to believe that the largest of 
these footmarks were made by birds? Is it not unsafe to call in 
the presence of creatures of such high organization when researches 
all over the world have taught us that in rocks of far less anti- 
quity no traces of the bone of a bird or mammal have been found? 
May not the impressions after all be those of some singular Sauroid 
animal with trifid feet, of which we have no links in existing nature ? 
Looking to such a possible explanation, and reflecting on the 
striking interference with the opinion heretofore very generally 
received, that a succession from lower to higher orders of creatures 
was invariably evidenced in ascending from lower to higher depo« 
sits, I candidly confess, that nearly up to the present moment, de- 
spite of the clear and faithful descriptions of the facts, I have clung 
to the idea, that the markings would not eventually be referred to 
the action of birds. My scruples as a geologist have, however, I 
confess, been much shaken, if not entirely removed, by a discovery in 
natural history, which I do not hesitate in characterizing as one of 
the most remarkable of modern times. 
From the examination, in 1839, of a single fragment of a bone 
brought from New Zealand, Professor Owen, though at first startled 
by its enormous size, at length pronounced it to belong to a gigantic 
form of the lowest organized bird, analogous to the diminutive 
Apteryx of the same island, in which the lungs approach more 
closely than in any other bird to the structure of those in reptiles. 
To this monstrous winged animal he assigned the name of Dinornis, 
and many of its bones, in a very perfect condition, having been sub- 
sequently found in New Zealand and deposited in the museum of 
the College of Surgeons, his opinion has been completely confirmed*. 
When it is known that the tibia of this bird is so huge that the 
femur of the Irish giant is of pigmy dimensions when compared with 
it, some conception may be formed of its entire size, which must 
have far exceeded that of the ostrich}. 
Now to apply this discovery to our Ornithichnites, one of 
the great difficulties which many of us had to overcome was 
the gigantic size of the largest American footsteps, which measured 
fifteen inches in length; and it is a most curious fact, that upon 
placing the fossil cast alongside of the metatarsal bone and tibia of 
the largest individual of Dinornis, Professor Owen is of opinion, 
that if the feet of this great tridactyle bird be found, they will, from 
the usual proportions maintained in such animals, be fully as large 
as those of the American Ornithichnite. From this moment, then, 
I am prepared to admit the value of the reasoning of Dr. Hitchcock, 
* The inhabitants of New Zealand believe that the Dinornis was in ex- 
istence with their progenitors. On this point, however, doubts may still be 
entertained, as we know that in many uncivilized countries, where the bones 
of extinct quadrupeds occur, the natives connect them with their ancestors. 
} See a most graphie sketch of this monstrous bird and its analogies 
from the pen of my friend Mr. Broderip, Penny Cyclopzdia (Unau). 
