396 PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE GENUS CNEMIORNIS. 



Some portions of ribs had been collected, corresponding in the size and relative 

 position of the capitular and tubercular joints with the answerable articular surfaces on 

 the dorsal vertebrae : the size of the costal articular surfaces on the margins of an 

 otherwise small and keel-less sternum similarly supported the inference that it belonged 

 to the same bird, and that this was one of those singularly numerous feathered species 

 of New Zealand that were without the power of flight. 



Finally, there was a humerus which, from the feeble development of its proximal 

 processes, had evidently belonged to some such flightless bird. The size of this bone 

 was, indeed, disproportionately small compared with the tibia, according to the ordi- 

 nary avian skeleton, but it bore nearly the same proportion to the sternum as does the 

 humerus in Notornis, and rather a larger proportion to the leg-bones than in the Emeu. 

 I, therefore, have strong faith in the accuracy of the reference of all the bones from the 

 limestone fissure above enumerated to the same species, if not the same skeleton ; the 

 more so, as there were no other bones of other species sufBciently similar in size to the 

 leg-bones, pelvis, and vertebrae, to which the keel-less sternum and feeble humerus 

 could be supposed to belong. 



The bird of the Middle Island of New Zealand, about the size of the Mooruk, and 

 now, perhaps, extinct, will be shown, I believe, by the characters of so much of its 

 skeleton as has been obtained, to have been the type of a genus unknown to science ; 

 and for which I propose the name Cnemiornis^, indicating the present species by the 

 term calcitrans, as being capable of kicking much more violently than the Apteryx, 

 after full allowance for difference of size. 



Cervical Vertebra. 



Of the cervical vertebree, some (PI. LXIII. figs. 1 & 2) present a remarkable expanse 

 of the neural arch {n), which may be 2 inches 6 lines across, the smallest transverse 

 diameter of the centrum (fig. 4, c) being but 5 lines. In such a vertebra the centrum 

 sends down a short, compressed hypapophysis (ib. h) from its hinder part. The length 

 of the centrum is 1 inch 9 lines ; it expands, being concave and smooth below, toward 

 the anterior articular surface (figs. 1 & 2, c'), and to each side of this expanded part the 

 pleurapophysis (figs. 1, 2 &4, pi) is confluent, completing a vertebrarterial canal (ib. v), 

 almost as wide as the neural one (n) ; the prezygapophyses {z) are wide apart, looking 

 upward and forward ; a horizontal plate of bone (figs. 3 & 4, iz) extends from each to 

 the postzygapophysis {%'), expanding and forming a slightly thickened, convex border (d) 

 before its termination ; there is a low and strong tuberosity (figs. 1 & 3, t) above each 

 postzygapophysis ; at the back of the neural platform is a low, compressed, neural 



' Ki'i'j^i), tibia, opvis, avis : in composition, cneini, as in " anticnemion," " gastrocnemius," &c., signifying the 

 genus of wingless birds remarkable for the size of the processes of the tibia. For the opportunity of describing 

 this series of bones I am indebted, as for the skull of Dinornis robustus from the same locality, to Dr. David 

 S. Price. 



