172 DE. J. VON HAAST ON A NEW SPECIES OP DINORNIS. 



on the sandhills and fiats. In a future communication I shall offer a resume of the 

 bones found in that locality, situated so far north, and at the same time make some 

 comparison with the different species of the Dinornithidse occurring in the various most 

 prominent localities in the middle and southern portions of the North Island and in 

 the whole of the South Island. However, I may here add that what strikes us most 

 conspicuously is the abundance of the two small species, Dinornis curtus and D. oweni, 

 in that northern locality, the first found only in the North Island, and the other 

 hitherto obtained only near Whangarei. Mr. Cheeseman was fortunate enough to 

 find in a cave near Pataua a nearly complete skeleton of Dinornis oweni, which will 

 form the subject of these notes. I may here observe that in the collections made by 

 those two gentlemen there are bones belonging to at least twenty skeletons of Dinornis 

 oioeni, being nearly all of the same size, and showing only the individual variety that 

 has been proved to exist in all our species of the Dinornithidse. There are always two 

 principal sizes that can be invariably distinguished, owing doubtless to a difference of 

 sex. Some of the separate leg-bones of Dinornis oweni, though evidently belonging to 

 mature birds, are even a little smaller and more slender than the specimen under 

 review, which, when in a resting position, would have stood about 2 feet 8 inches high, 

 and could thus only compare as to size with Aptomis and Cnemiornis. 



Cranium. 



Sir Richard Owen, in his ' Memoirs on the Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand,' 

 on page 119 describes a cranium (figured on pi. xxxi. figs. 4, 5, 6) as that of Dinornis 

 dromioides. This cranium was received from the late W. Swainson, the distinguished 

 naturalist, then living in New Zealand, and was obtained from the North Island, 

 probably in the vicinity of the Bay of Islands l . 



In comparing with it the cranium belonging to the skeleton of Dinornis oweni, I find 

 that in every respect as to form and size the latter closely agrees with that described 

 as far back as 1846 by Sir Richard Owen. It is, however, a remarkable fact — showing 

 that the smallest Dinornithidse possess very large skulls in proportion to their size — 

 that this cranium was then referred to a species more than twice the size of Dinornis 

 oweni. The skull of Dinornis dromioides is doubtless much larger. So far as I am 

 aware it has, however, never been described. This latter species seems to have been 

 an inhabitant principally of the North Island, all the bones described by Sir Richard 

 Owen having been collected there. The Canterbury Museum, however, possesses two 

 metatarsi, of which one was obtained at Glenmark, the other near Temuka, Southern 

 Canterbury, both having been found imbedded in turbary deposits, and both closely 

 answering to the figures and descriptions of Sir R. Owen. Unfortunately the cranium 

 under consideration is also in a mutilated state, though some parts are more perfect 

 than those described by Sir R. Owen. 



1 Owen, op cit. p. 116. 



