362 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE GENUS DINORNIS. 
in the bones of the six kinds of New-Zealand wingless birds defined in my first Memoir’, 
that I presumed to express such conclusion in the usual way of specific denominations. 
On the same grounds were defined four other species in the second Memoir’. 
As I have already noted, I had had the satisfaction of seeing the characters repeated 
in more than one specimen of femur, tibia, and metatarsus of eight out of those ten 
species, in most of them by several bones. Of Dinornis casuarinus, for example, in the 
year 1846, I had had under inspection ten femora, eleven tibiz, and six metatarsi. I 
had thus been able, in acquisitions received subsequently to the date of the above-cited 
Memoirs, to refer bones to species therein characterized and figured. 
If in time to come other observers and collectors of avian remains in New Zealand be 
able to match the bones with those which I have described and figured as the types of 
extinct species of Dinornis, in the way and degree, ¢.g., in which it has been done by 
the acute and experienced naturalist and Government Geologist of Canterbury Province 
in the case of the rich depository of dinornithic remains in Glenmark Swamp’, all 
reasonable scepticism will in the end give way. 
But I work strongly impressed with the duty of making due and suitable return for 
the opportunities liberally afforded me of examining and comparing the specimens 
collected in New Zealand, by giving figures of the natural size of all such as typify 
species. This is the essential foundation of the work of recognizing the already defined 
species, and of differentiating additional kinds of the extinct birds of New Zealand. 
On this ground I proceed to describe a pelvis, femur, tibia, and metatarsus of a 
Dinornis which comes under the latter category, and to ascribe it to a Dinornis gravis, 
from the weight of the bird relatively to its bulk, as indicated by the proportions of the 
bones of the hind limbs. 
I begin with the metatarsus (Pl. LVIII.), as this bone usually yields the best charac- 
teristics of the kind of Moa to which it belonged. 
In length it comes nearest to the metatarsus of Dinornis cassuarinus*, in breadth to 
that of Dinornis crassus*; it is, however, shorter by half an inch than the former, and 
broader by five lines than the latter; and as Dinornis crassus was differentiated from 
Din. caswarinus by the greater relative breadth of the metatarsus, this differential cha- 
racter applies still more strongly to the present species, inasmuch as the entire bone is 
shorter than that of Dinornis casuarinus, instead of being longer as is the metatarsus 
of Dinornis crassus. 
The length of the metatarsus in Dinornis gravis is 7 inches 9 lines, the least breadth 
of the shaft is 2 inches 1 line, the breadth of the proximal end is 3 inches 2 lines or 
3 inches 3 lines, that of the distal end is 4 inches 2 lines, the thickness or antero- 
posterior diameter of the middle of the shaft is 1 inch, its circumference is 5 inches. 
‘ Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. iii. p. 235, * Tom. cit. p. 344 (1846). 
* Haast, “On the Measurements of Dinornis Bones from a Swamp at Glenmark,” in Transactions of the 
New-Zealand Institute, p. 80. S8yo. Wellington, 1869, 
* Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. iii. pl. 48. fig. 3. ® Tom. cit. pl. 48. fig. 4. 
