184 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE GENUS DINORNIS. 
illustrations, natural size, of previous descriptions of the bones of the hind limb, in the 
‘ Transactions of the Zoological Society,’ vol. vi., preclude the necessity of further 
trespass. ‘The femora, tibie, and metatarsi in the skeleton of Dinornis maximus in the 
Canterbury Museum, and in that of the British Museum, closely accord with the first 
received detached bones indicative of the species. 
The side view of this skeleton prefixed by Dr. Buller to his excellent work on the 
existing Birds of New Zealand precludes the necessity of repetition, as my drawing 
differs in little else than showing the trunk of the bird at an angle with the hind limbs 
which somewhat diminishes the height of this largest of known birds as compared 
with that indicated by the figure of the Maori Chief which Dr. Buller has introduced 
into his Plate. 
The height of the skeleton of Dinornis maximus, as articulated in an easy standing 
position, in the British Museum, is 11 feet; the length of the trunk (dorsal and sacral 
series of vertebra) is 4 feet 4 inches; the length of the hind limb, in the same position, 
following the angle of the segments, is 9 feet; the total length of the skeleton, from 
the point of the beak to the end of the tail, following the curves of the spine, is 11 feet 
4 inches. 
Reviewing the osteological facts in the present and preceding memoirs on Dinornis, 
the following characters seem to be common to the genus :— 
1. Skull with a rather short, broad, moderately arched bill, not attaining the height 
of the cranium ; occipital condyle not projecting so far back as the upper border of the 
occipital foramen. 
2. Horizontal palatal plates of the palatines and maxillaries more or less confluent, 
not uniting solidly, but suturally, with the premaxillary and the vomer. 
3. An Apterygian, not Dromeine, pelvis. 
4. A short, broad sternum, with small, ill-defined coracoid pits, and with three 
posterior notches. 
5. Scapula and coracoid small and feeble, forming no angle, not developing a glenoid 
cavity at their bony confluence. 
6. Four toes; the hallux small and high-placed. 
7. Terminal confluent caudals of less vertical extent than the antecedent free caudals. 
In every example of associated or connected parts of a foot the small back toe has 
been found. Its absence in the earlier transmitted foot-bones I have since had reason 
to regard as accidental; and should so small and seemingly functionless a toe have 
been the subject of congenital defect, the true generic characters of Dinornis will be 
given by the species demonstrating the Apterygian structure of the foot rather than 
by a propagable variety exemplifying the ‘ monstrum per defectum.’ 
As the present may, probably, be the last of the series of papers “ On Dinornis ” 
which I have to communicate to ‘ The Transactions of the Zoological Society,’ I append 
to it illustrations of the most authentic evidences of the plumage of the extinct species 
