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VIII. On Divornis (Part XV.): containing a Description of the Skull, Femur, Tibia, 
Fibula, and Metatarsus of Aptornis defossor, Owen, from near Oamaru, Middle 
Island, New Zealand ; with additional Observations on Aptornis otidiformis, on 
Notornis mantellii, avd on Dinornis curtus. By Professor Owen, F.R.S., 
F.ZS., &e. 
Read March 10th, 1870. 
[Puates XL. to XLIV.] 
§1. 
THE Rey. Ricuarp Taytor, M.A., to whose valuable cooperation in advancing the 
Natural History of New Zealand, the field of his devoted missionary labours, I have 
had occasions to testify’, was so obliging as to submit to my inspection, on his recent 
return to England, a skull, femur, tibia, and fibula, which I recognized, with intense 
interest, to belong to that very rare and singular genus of extinct New-Zealand birds 
the Aptornis. Mr. Taylor favoured me with a copy of the following “entry” from his 
note-book relative to these bones :—‘ They were discovered in a cave of soft sand about 
fourteen miles from Oamaru, which was filled with birds’ bones. The peculiarity of 
this skull is its massiveness, very small brain-receptacle, and width of bill: it appears 
to be allied to the Wotornis, but of a much larger size.’—July 1st, 1863. 
It will be seen in the course of the following descriptions that these bones belong to 
that ornithic form first indicated by a tibia referred to a Dinornis otidiformis’, but 
subsequently shown by metatarsal and cranial characters to represent a distinct genus, 
for which I proposed the name Aptornis’*. 
The generic characteristics of both skull- and leg-bones are closely repeated in the 
present specimens; but, as shown in the “ Table of Admeasurements” (p. 378), they are 
larger than those parts of Aptornis otidiformis. This increase of size is also associated 
with some modifications of form and proportion. The original (smaller) specimens, on 
' From the period, viz., of my Memoir on the first general collection of Dinornis-remains of November 1843. 
“The Rey. Mr. Taylor, of Wanganui, has a large collection of these bones, found in a river between that place 
and New Plymouth.”—Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. iii. (November 1843), p. 271. This locality is in the North 
Island, where the smaller species of Aptornis was found. Mr. Taylor has recorded the results of long expe- 
rience and observation in his work ‘ On New Zealand and its Inhabitants,’ 8yo. 
? Trans, Zool. Soc. vol. iii. p. 247, pls. 25 & 26. fig. 6. 
4 In the Memoir (No. III.) read January 11th, 1848; ib. vol. iii. p. 347. In the ‘ Reyue Zoologique’ for 
October 1848, M. de Selys-Longchamps proposed the minor abbreviation “ Apterornes” for some, then vaguely 
indicated, extinct birds of the Mascarene Islands. 
VOL. VII.—PaRT v. January, 1871. 3c 
