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XV. On Dinornis (Part XXIII.): containing a Description of the Skeleton of Dinornis 
parvus, Owen. By Professor Ownn, C.B., F.R.S., F.Z.S., &e. 
Received October 19th, 1881, read January 3rd, 18892. 
[Puates LI. to LVIII.] 
§1. 
OF no species of Dinornis have I received so complete osteological evidence of one 
and the same individual as in the case of the subject of the present communication. 
Along with the skeleton were found the ossified rings of the windpipe (Pl. Ll. figs. 
10-12) and some of the smoothly rounded pebbles from the gizzard. 
This rare specimen, the sole evidence of its species which has hitherto come to my 
knowledge, was discovered, during the construction of a road, in a cave about forty 
miles north-west of Nelson Town, South Island of New Zealand; and the parts, being 
collected with unusual care, were transmitted, through W. J. Upton, Esq., to the British 
Museum, and purchased by the Trustees. 
The same confluence of the constituent bones of the tarso-metatarsal segment of the 
leg which supported the inference of the specific distinction and full size of Dinornis 
didiformis*, is manifested in the present evidence of the still smaller species; and every 
other part of the skeleton testifies to the full growth of a mature if not aged individual. 
§ 2. The Skull. 
Although the reference of skulls respectively to species of Dinornis in former ‘ Parts’ 
was based on grounds which left little doubt of accuracy, of no species have I had the 
good fortune to receive the certainty which attaches in this respect to that of which 
the skeleton was found entire and undisturbed under the circumstances above narrated. 
The skull of Dinornis parvus, the subject of Pl. LII., lacks only the portion of the 
osseous palate contributed by the vomerine, palatal, and pterygoid bones, the dinor- 
nithic disposition and proportions of which bones have been described and figured in 
former Memoirs, and probably did not materially differ in the present species, in which 
the palatal processes of the maxillary (ib. 21’) and premaxillary (ib. 22’) closely agree 
with those parts in the undercited species’. 
The figures in Pl. LII., being of the natural size, dispense with a note of dimensions. 
Of the skulls of species of Dinornis already figured which are nearest in size to that of 
1 Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, 4to, vol. iii. 1843, p. 244, pl. xxxvil. fig. 6; Memoirs 
on the Extinct Birds of New Zealand, 4to, 1878, pp. 80-82, pl. xxvii. figs. 3-6, pl. xxviii. figs. 3, 4. 
2 Trans. Zool. Soc. vols. iii., v., and vii.: D. robustus, D. ingens, D. crassus, 
VOL. XI.—PaRT vill. No, 1.—January, 1883, _ 20 
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