72 DR. MANTELL ON THE DISCOVERY OF NOTORNIS. 
my son, however, expresses his belief in the native accounts, and that if the creature 
no longer exists, its extermination is of very recent date. 
In concluding this brief narrative of the discovery of a living example of a genus of 
birds once contemporary with the colossal Moa, and hitherto only known by its fossil 
remains, J beg to remark, that this highly interesting fact tends to confirm the conclu- 
sions expressed in my communications to the Geological Society, namely, that the 
Dinornis, Palapteryx, and related forms, were coeval with some of the existing species 
of birds peculiar to New Zealand, and that their final extinction took place at no very 
distant period, and long after the advent of the aboriginal maoris. As my son at the 
date of his last letter was about to depart on another exploration of the bone deposits 
of the North Island, I indulge the hope that he will ere long have the gratification of 
transmitting or bringing to England additional materials for the elucidation of the ex- 
tinct and recent faunas of New Zealand. 
With much pleasure I resign to Mr. Gould the description of the ornithological cha- 
racters and relations of this, in every sense, rara avis, from the Isles of the Antipodes. 
