12 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE GENUS DINORNIS. 
Bones of the Leg of Notornis. 
The genus Notornis, of the family of the Rallide, and most nearly allied to the Por- 
phyrio, was established on a skull described and figured in my Memoir of 1848’. 
It is to this genus that I refer the femur, tibia and tarso-metatarse about to be de- 
scribed, on account of their similar correspondence with the same bones in Porphyrio, 
and their proportional agreement in size with the skull of the Notornis. 
The specimens were obtained from the North Island of New Zealand, and were 
transmitted by the Rev. William Cotton, M.A. The femur (PI. II. fig. 3) is moderately 
long and slightly bent with the convexity forwards, as in the Brachypteryz. A small 
head supported on a short and thick neck is impressed on its upper part by a large 
fossa for the ‘ ligamentum teres’: the apex of the three-sided trochanter is bent upwards 
and forwards: the broad irregular convex outer surface of the trochanter extends 
between a concavity at the inner and fore part of the trochanter and a smaller concavity 
at the back part of the upper surface of the shaft. A narrow intermuscular ridge ex- 
tends down the middle of the back part of the shaft to the shallow popliteal space, above 
the inner condyle, as in the Brachypteryx: the shaft is nearly cylindrical. ‘The rotular 
intercondyloid surface is wide and slightly inclined inwards. The fibular notch behind 
the outer condyle, and the rough fossa above it, closely accord with those of the Bra- 
chypteryz. 
The tibia (Pl. II. fig. 4) measures seven inches ten lines in length, and like the femur 
is more slender in proportion to its length than in the Aptornis: the proximal articular 
surface is almost confined to the entocondyloid division, which is very slightly concave 
in adaptation to the almost flattened broad inferior surface of the inner condyle of the 
femur: the intercondyloid tuberosity is low. The epicnemial ridge rises much above it, 
and equals in extent the breadth of the articular surface of the tibia: it forms an angle at 
the fore part of the middle of the proximal end of the tibia and extends thence obliquely 
outwards and backwards, where it terminates by meeting at a right angle the ecto- 
cnemial ridge: this is short, and descending obliquely inwards terminates or subsides 
upon the prominent fore part of the tibia about an inch below its upper angle. The 
procnemial ridge has an equally short origin, which is oblique and parallel with the ecto- 
cnemial ridge: it is broken in the specimen under description, but from the analogy of 
the Brachypteryx probably projects far forwards: where it subsides at the inner side of 
the tibia there is a tuberosity, from which a low ridge extends bounding internally the 
fore part of the tibia as far as the canal for the extensor tendon. The fibular ridge is 
well-marked ; it begins on the outer side of the shaft one inch below the epicnemial 
ridge, extends nearly two inches down the shaft, and after a smooth tract of half an 
inch, reappears as a rough tract of an inch and a half in extent: a low narrow ridge 
is continued thence to the outer side of the fossa, lodging the extensor canal. The shaft 
of the tibia is compressed from before backwards, is smooth and rounded on the inner 
* Zoological Transactions, p. 366. 
