140 MB. T. ALLIS ON A SKELETON OP DINOENIS EOBTISTUS. 



polished, vertical surfaces, must serve as my excuse for obtruding 

 once more on the attention of naturalists a subject that has been 

 the occasion of so much controversy. 



Further Note on a Skeleton of Dinornis robustus, Owen, in the 

 York Museum. By Thomas Allis, Esq., P.L.S. 



[Eead Nov. 17, 1864.] 



In my paper on the Dinornis read before the Society on the 16th 

 of June, I stated that the three dorsal vertebrae immediately 

 above the sacrum were normally anchylosed ; when we mounted 

 the skeleton we found that was not the case, and we separated all 

 these vertebrae. It was so long since I had employed myself in 

 comparative osteology, that I had forgotten that to have these 

 bones anchylosed is only the normal condition of birds which 

 possess the power of flight ; having discovered the mistake, I feel 

 it a duty to acknowledge and rectify it. "We also found that we 

 have the first phalanx of the left middle toe; we thought we 

 wanted every bone of that toe: we further found that aU the 

 phalanges of the left outer toe, as well as part of the condyle to 

 which they were articulated, have lost the whole of their perios- 

 teum, in consequence of their exposure to atmospheric change 

 and influence from their near approach to the external circum- 

 ference of the sand-drift in which the bird was entombed. I 

 stated that the only figure of the Dinornis to which we had access 

 gave the bird but two sternal ribs. Professor Owen informs me 

 that that had been corrected in vol. iv. (pi. 46) of the ' Zoological 

 Transactions.' 



In the report of my former paper I am made to say, " that the 

 middle cervical vertebrae had sufiered from exposure above the 

 surface of the ground." "What I said, or meant to say, was, that 

 they were so high in the sand-drift as to be within reach of the 

 deleterious influence of the atmosphere ; while the other parts of 

 the skeleton were at a suflicient depth to be secured from its in- 

 fluence, with the exception of the left toe before alluded to. Had 

 the vertebrae been above the surface, it would have been impos- 

 sible for so many detached bones to have been preserved in the 

 regular succession in which we flud them ; the nine cervical ver- 

 tebrae we have, are evidently the lowest nine in the series. 



In the cavities of the sacrum we found a good deal of impal- 



