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XV. On Dinornis (Part XXIII.) : containing a Description of the Skeleton o/Dinoniis 

 parvus, Owen. By Professor Otv^en, C.B., F.R.S., F.Z.S., &c. 



Eeceived October 19tli, 18S1, read January 3rd, 1882. 



[Plates LI. to LVIII.] 



§1. 



Of no species of Dinornis have I received so complete osteological evidence of one 

 and the same individual as in the case of the subject of the present communication. 

 Along with the skeleton were found the ossified rings of the windpipe (PI. LI. figs. 

 10-12) and some of the smoothly rounded pebbles from the gizzard. 



This rare specimen, the sole evidence of its species which has hitherto come to my 

 knowledge, was discovered, during the construction of a road, in a cave about forty 

 miles north-west of Nelson Town, South Island of New Zealand ; and the parts, being 

 collected with unusual care, were transmitted, through W. J. Upton, Esq., to the British 

 Museum, and purchased by the Trustees. 



The same confluence of the constituent bones of the tarso-metatarsal segment of the 

 leg which supported the inference of the specific distinction and full size of Dinornis 

 didiformis ', is manifested in the present evidence of the still smaller species ; and every 

 other part of the skeleton testifies to the full growth of a mature if not aged individual. 



§ 2. The Skull. 



Although the reference of skulls respectively to species of Dinornis in former ' Parts ' 

 was based on grounds which left little doubt of accuracy, of no species have I had the 

 good fortune to receive the certainty which attaches in this respect to that of which 

 the skeleton was found entire and undisturbed under the circumstances above narrated. 



The skull of Dinornis parvus, the subject of PI. LII., lacks only the portion of the 

 osseous palate contributed by the vomerine, palatal, and pterygoid bones, the dinor- 

 nithic disposition and proportions of which bones have been described and figured in 

 former Memoirs, and probably did not materially differ in the present species, in which 

 the palatal processes of the maxillary (ib. 21') and premaxillary (ib. 22') closely agree 

 with those parts in the undercited species ^. 



The figures in PI. LII., being of the natural size, dispense with a note of dimensions. 

 Of the skulls of species of Dinornis already figured which are nearest in size to that of 



' Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, 4to, vol. iii. 1843, p. 244, pi. xxxvii. fig. 6 ; Memoirs 

 on the Extinct Birds of New Zealand, 4to, 1878, pp. 80-82, pi. xxvii. figs. 3-6, pi. xxviii. figs. 3, 4. 

 ' Trans. Zool. Soc. vols, iii., v., and vii. : D. rohustus, D. ingens, D. crassus. 



VOL. XI. — FAET VIII. No. 1. — January, IgSS.^ 2 



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