CHAP, ix.] PROFESSOR OWEN'S CONJECTURE. 365 



total extirpation of the genus Dinornis to this low point, 

 then may have arisen those cannibal practices which, 

 until lately, formed the opprobrium of a race of men 

 otherwise to be admired in many respects. 



And how came this vast assemblage of Dinornithes 

 to be congregated in one limited group of islands, to 

 be preyed upon by Man before Christianity could come 

 to teach him to refrain from preying upon his fellow- 

 men? Professor Owen replies by a bold, almost an 

 audacious conjecture, which, however, will afford matter 

 for thought to those who remember that fossil footsteps 

 of similar birds have been found in North America, and 

 who have considered the theory of subsidence set forth 

 in Mr. Charles Darwin's important and lucid works. 



"The extraordinary number of wingless birds, and 

 the vast stature of some of the species peculiar to New 

 Zealand, and which have finally become extinct in that 

 small tract of dry land, suggest it to be the remnant of 

 a large tract or continent, over which this singular 

 Struthious Fauna formerly ranged. One might almost 

 be disposed to regard New Zealand as one end of a 

 mighty wave of the unstable and ever-shifting crust of 

 the earth, of which the opposite end, after having been 

 long submerged, has again risen with its accumulated 

 deposits in North America, showing us in the Connecti- 

 cut sandstones of the Permian period the foot-prints 

 of the gigantic birds which trod its surface before it 

 sank; and to surmise that the intermediate body of the 

 land-wave, along which the Dinornis may have travelled 

 to New Zealand, has progressively subsided, and now 

 lies beneath the Pacific Ocean." 



Alas for the Wonder-Birds ! They are gone ! Take 

 them for all in all, we ne'er shall look upon their like 



