January 24, 1843. 
William Yarrell, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
Professor Owen exhibited various bones, being the remains of a 
gigantic Struthious Bird (Dinornis Nove-Zealandie, Owen) which 
has become extinct in the North Island of New Zealand, and pro- 
ceeded to read his notes relating to them. 
“Since the communication to the Zoological Society, Jan. 10th, 
1843, of the letter of the Rev. Mr. Cotton, relative to the remains 
of the gigantic bird of New Zealand which had been collected in 
the North Island by the Rev. Wm. Williams, one of the boxes of 
these remains, transmitted by that gentleman to Prof. Buckland, has 
been received, and the specimens have been kindly placed in my 
hands for description. 
“« An entire femur, somewhat larger than that of which the shaft 
is described and figured in the Society’s Transactions, proves the 
specific identity of the present remains with the fragment, upon which 
I ventured to affirm, three years ago*, that a large Struthious Bird 
‘of a heavier and more sluggish species than the Ostrich’ had re- 
cently become extinct, if it were not still living, in New Zealand. 
“The femur has very nearly the same proportions of thickness to 
length as in the Ostrich, but the shaft is less compressed ; it conse- 
quently differs from that of the Apteryx in being shorter in propor- 
tion to its thickness ; but it resembles the femur of the Apteryx, and 
differs from that of the Ostrich and Emeu in the important character 
of the absence of the air-hole at the back part of the neck, and the 
consequent substitution of marrow for air in the interior of the bone. 
It differs from the femur of the Ostrich, and agrees with that of the 
Apteryx, in the greater width of the anterior interspace of the con- 
dyles; but it differs from that of the Apteryx, not only in size and 
general proportions, but also in the form of the distal extremity, 
which has a deeper posterior intercondyloid depression, and a sharper 
and more produced posterior part of the outer condyle. 
«The length of the above femur of the great bird of New Zealand 
is eleven inches; the circumference of the middle of the shaft five 
and a half inches: but the present collection includes the shaft of a 
femur of another individual, with a circumference of seven and a 
half inches. 
«The most perfect tibia in the present collection measures two feet 
four and a half inches in length, and apparently corresponds in pro- 
portion with the fragment of the larger femur. Now allowing that 
femur fourteen inches of entire length, the tibia is then twice the 
* The memoir was communicated to the Zoological Society November 
12th, 1839, vol. iii. p. 32. pl. 3. 
