TRANSACTIONS 



OF 



THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



I. On DiNORNis (Part IV.) : containing the Restoration of the Feet of that genus and of 

 Palapteryx, with a Description of the Sternum in Palapteryx and Aptornis. By 

 Professor Owen, F.R.S., F.Z.S. &c. 



Read February 26th, 1850. 



In previous memoirs published in the Transactions of the Zoological Society, the 

 remains of the wingless birds of New Zealand, consisting of the cranium and the bony 

 beak', of the vertebrae and pelvis^, of the sternum^, and the principal bones of the 

 leg"*, have been determined, described, and referred for the most part to different species 

 of Dinornis and Palapteryx ; the rest belonging to the genera Aptornis and Notornis, 

 the species of which, though they would be called large in comparison with the majority 

 of the actual class of birds, dwindle into insignificance by the side of their stupendous 

 contemporaries. 



There chiefly remained to complete our knowledge of the osteology of these appa- 

 rently extinct forms of the feathered class, the complete restoration of the feet : and 

 when the nuitiber of different bones which compose this part of the skeleton of the bird 

 is called to mind, the slight though definite modifications of form that distinguish them, 

 and the chances against the discovery of such comparatively small bones, it will not be 

 matter of surprise that the foot should have been the last of the segments of the limbs 

 to be so reconstructed. 



With each successive collection of the remains of the great terrestrial birds of New 

 Zealand, since the arrival, in 1843, of that first transmitted by the Very Rev. William 



' Vol. iii. p. 345. = lb. pp. 239, 253. ' lb. p. 316. ' lb. pp. 240, 319. 



VOL. IV. PART I. ;?" B 



