JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS, 29 
I have in my collection one bone (a 7722), which is very nearly 
2 feet in length, 17 inches around the upper joint, 14 inches around 
the lower joint, and 7 inches around the very smallest part of the 
bone. Even this bone dwindles into insignificance compared with a 
measurement given by Sir Walter Buller in his famous work on “ The 
Birds of New Zealand”—Femur, ¢ ft., 6 in.; TZzbia, 3 ft, 3 in.; 
Tarsus, i ft., 8 in. ; outer toe, 934 in. From the point of the toe to 
the very top of the leg a little over 7 ft., 2 in. And this bone had 
been lying in the earth for at least a century and a half. 
I have also a handful of gizzard stones, found in considerable 
numbers among the remains of these birds, where from flood or fire, 
or foolish slaughter by the natives, large numbers of them have per- 
ished in a single day. In many instances the remains were so well 
preserved that it was not difficult to discover the very stones each 
had carried in the gizzard, many of them over 3 lbs each, and in a 
few the weight of the stones in a single bird was over 5% lbs. 
No one subject in the colony, of a scientific nature, has more 
fully and earnestly engaged the attention of literary men than the 
existence and so lately the extinction of this giant bird. Why has 
no other such bird been found elsewhere? By what means were 
they at length destroyed? And how many years is it since they 
ceased to exist? Prof. Owen says 400 years. Sir George Grey says 
not less than 150. No one knows; yet all regret that so noble a 
specimen of the bird world should have ceased to walk upon our 
earth. 
[The Association acknowledges the kindness of the Toronto Globe for permis - 
sion to use cuts which illustrate this paper.] 
