140 Things not generally Known. 



being 5 finches. The extraordinary proportions of the meta- 

 tarsus of this wingless bird will, however, be still better under- 

 stood by comparison with the same bone in the ostrich, in 

 which the metatarsus is 19 inches in length, the breadth of its 

 lower end being only 2 inches. From the materials accumu- 

 lated by Mr. Mantell, the entire skeleton of the Dinornis ele- 

 phantopus has been reconstructed ; and now forms a worthy 

 companion of the Megatherium and Mastodon in the gallery of 

 fossil remains in the British Museum. This species of Dinornis 

 appears to have been restricted to the Middle Island of New 

 Zealand.* 



Another specimen of the remains of the Dinornis is pre- 

 served in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 

 Lincoln's-Inn Fields; and the means by which the college 

 obtained this valuable acquisition is thus graphically narrated 

 by Mr. Samuel Warren, F. R.S. : 



In the year 1839, Professor Owen was sitting alone in his study, when 

 a shabbily-dressed man made his appearance, announcing that he had 

 got a great curiosity, which he had brought from New Zealand, and 

 wished to dispose of to him. It had the appearance of an old mar- 

 row-bone, about six inches in length, and rather more than two inches 

 in thickness, with both extremities broken off; and Professor Owen consi- 

 dered that, to whatever animal it mi^ht have belonged, the fragment 

 must have lain in the earth for centuries. At first he considered this 

 same marrow-bone to have belonged to an ox, at all events to a quad- 

 ruped ; for the wall or rim of the bone was six times as thick as the bone 

 of any bird, even of the ostrich. He compared it with the bones in the 

 skeleton of an ox, a horse, a camel, a tapir, and every quadruped ap- 

 parently possessing a bone of that size and configuration ; but it corre- 

 sponded with none. On this he very narrowly examined the surface of 

 the bony rim, and at length became satisfied that this fragment must 

 have belonged to a bird 1 to one at least as large as an ostrich, but of 

 a totally different species ; and consequently one never before heard of, 

 as an ostrich was by far the biggest bird known. 



From the difference in the strength of the bone, the ostrich being un- 

 able to fly, so must have been unable this unknown bird ; and so our 

 anatomist came to the conclusion that this old shapeless bone indicated 

 the former existence in New Zealand of some huge bird, at least as 

 great as an ostrich, but of a far heavier and more sluggish kind. Pro- 

 fessor Owen was confident of the validity of his conclusions, but would 

 communicate that confidence to no one else ; and notwithstanding at- 

 tempts to dissuade him from committing his views to the public, he 

 Printed his deductions in the Transactions of the Zoological Society for 

 839, where fortunately they remain on record as conclusive evidence of 

 the fact of his having then made this guess, so to speak, in the dark. 

 He caused the bone, however, to be engraved ; and having sent a hun- 



* Dr. A. Thomson has communicated to Jameson's Journal, No. 112, a De- 

 scription of the Caves in the North Island, with some general observations on 

 this genus of birds. He concludes them to have been indolent, dull, and stupid; 

 to have lived chiefly on vegetable food in mountain fastnesses and secluded 

 caverns. 



In the picture-gallery at Drayton Manor, the seat of Sir Robert Peel, hangs a 

 portrait of Professor Owen, and in his hand is depicted the tibia of a Moa. 



