28 Mantell on Fossil Remains from New Zealand. 



Art. III. — On the Fossil Remains of Birds collected in various 

 parts of New Zealand by Mr. Walter Mantell, of Welling- 

 ton ; by Gideon Algernon Mantell, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S., 



Vice President of the Geological Society. 



From the Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc, London, No. 15, Aug., 1848. 



It is not a little remarkable that one of the most interesting 

 palseontological discoveries of our times, namely, the former ex- 

 istence of a race of colossal Ostrich-like birds in the islands of 

 New Zealand, though rrlade in a British colony, and announced 

 to the scientific world by an eminent British physiologist, has not 

 hitherto been brought under the immediate notice of the Geolog- 

 ical Society of London. I therefore consider myself particularly 

 fortunate \\\ having an opportunity, through the researches of 

 my eldest son, Mr. Walter Mantell, of submitting for the exam- 

 ation of the Fellows of this Society, perhaps the most extraor- 

 dinary collection of the fossil remains of struthious birds that has 

 ever been transmitted to Europe, containing the crania and 

 mandibles, egg-shells, and bones, of several genera and species, 

 most of which, if not all, have probably been long extinct. 



The first relic of this kind was made known to European nat- 

 uralists by Pofessor Owen, in 1839. It consisted of the shaft of 

 a femur or thigh-bone, but a few inches long, and with both of 

 its extremities wanting ; and this fragment so much resembled in 

 its general appearance the marrow-bone of an ox, as actually to 

 have been regarded as such by more than one eminent natu- 

 ralist of this metropolis. If I were required to select from the 

 numerous and important inductions of palaeontology, the one 

 which of all others presents the most striking and triumphant in- 

 stance of the sagacious application of the principles of the corre- 

 lation of organic structure enunciated by the illustrious Cuvier, 

 the one that may be regarded as the experimentum cruris of the 

 Cuvierian philosophy, — I would unhesitatingly adduce the inter- 

 pretation of this fragment of bone. I know not among all the 

 marvels which palaeontology has revealed to us, a more brilliant 

 example of successful philosophical induction — the felicitous pre- 

 diction of genius enlightened by profound scientific knowledge. 



The specimen was put into Professor Owen's hands for exam- 

 ination, with the statement "that it was found in New Zealand, 

 where the natives have a tradition that it belonged to a bird ot 

 the Eagle kind which had become extinct, and to which they 

 gave the name of Movie ;" and from this mere fragment, and 

 with this meagre history, the Hunterian professor arrived at the 

 conclusion, " that there existed, and perhaps still exists in those 

 distant islands, -a race of struthious birds of larger and more co- 

 lossal stature than the Ostrich or any other known species." 

 This inference was based on the peculiar character of the cancel- 





