TRANSACTIONS 
OF 
THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
I. On Dinornts (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 vertebra 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 number 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 
1 Vol. iii. p. 345. ? Ib. pp. 239, 253. 3 Ib. p. 316. ‘ Ib, pp. 240, 319. 
VOL. IV.—PART I. B 
