CHAP. IX.] THEIR CHARACTERISTICS. 363 



Some at least of the characters of the skeleton of the 

 Dinornis may have related to root-eating habits. The 

 unusual strength of the neck indicates the application 

 of the beak to a more laborious task than the mere 

 plucking of seeds, fruits, or herbage *. In the spinous 

 processes of the vertebraB are indications of those forces 

 by which the beak was associated with the feet in the 

 labour of dislodging the farinaceous roots of the Ferns 

 that grow in such abundance over the soil of New 

 Zealand. The great strength of the leg had reference, 

 especially in the less gigantic species, to something 

 more than sustaining and transporting the superincum- 

 bent weight of the body ; and this additional function 

 is indicated, by the analogy both of the Apteryx and 

 the Rassorial birds, to be the scratching up of the soil. 

 Professor Owen therefore pictures to his mind's eye 

 a living portrait of the long-lost Dinornis, and imagines 

 the several species ranging as the lords of the soil of a 

 fair island, in which the will of a bountiful Providence has 

 offered a well-spread table to a race of animated beings 

 peculiarly adapted to enjoy it. They were then the 

 highest living forms upon that part of the earth. No 

 terrestrial Mammal was there to contest the sovereignty 

 with the feathered bipeds, before the arrival of Man. 



The extent and variety of the wingless terrestrial 

 birds in times anterior to Man's dominion over the 

 earth, must have been enormous. We know that the 

 Struthionida have suffered greater diminution within the 



* The Bustard is an existing example of the same adaptation. 

 " Yesterday I had a cock Bustard sent mee from beyond Thetford. I 

 never did see such a vast thick neck ; the crop was pulled out, butt as a 

 Turkey hath an odde large substance without, so had this within the 

 inside of the skinne, and the strongest and largest neck bone of any 

 bird in England." Sir Thomas Browne to his son Edward. 



