396 C. W. Andrews — On Dinornis maximus. 



sand-dunes about a mile from the sea in the neighbourhood of 

 Invercargill (South Island). The bones had been buried under 

 several feet of sand which had been removed by the wind, exposing 

 a portion of the pelvis, the remainder being still buried in wet sand. 

 The skull was found in remarkably perfect condition, and some 200 

 ossified tracheal rings were collected. A few days previously 

 another skeleton had been discovered under similar circumstances, 

 and it is probable that from time to time others may be exposed. 



Some two feet below the skeleton, Mr. Ewen came upon rotten 

 flax-sticks and a bed of water-worn shingle, and he considers that 

 probably these marked the position of the bed of an old watercourse 

 down which the carcases of the birds drowned by floods were 

 washed. 



The two skeletons thus brought to light differ from one another 

 in some important particulars. Thus, in the specimen now figured 

 it is stated that the basi-occipital is deeper, the maxillary processes 

 much less developed, the paroccipital processes do not extend so far 

 back, the temporal fossae are deeper and broader, the basisphenoidal 

 region is longer and the premaxillae shorter and considerably 

 narrower than in the skull of the other specimen. Moreover, 

 with this latter only seven tracheal rings were found, while with 

 the present specimen there were about two hundred. Professor 

 Hutton has made some interesting remarks (loc. cit. supra) as to 

 the probable nature of these differences. He points out that they 

 may be (1) sexual, (2) specific, (3) merely the result of individual 

 variation, and for several reasons comes to the conclusion that they 

 are sexual, the skeleton of the male being that now figured, the 

 other of the female. 



The most important reasons for this conclusion are, firstly, 

 that in the case of the last-mentioned specimen a great number of 

 fragments of egg-shell were found among the bones, in such a position 

 as to render it highly probable that the egg was inside the bird at 

 the time of its death ; and secondly, the tracheal rings in the same 

 individual were incompletely ossified. The skull is remarkably 

 well preserved. It shows the flattening and deflection of the 

 broad blunt premaxillary region, the marked inclination forward 

 of the occipital plane, and the other characters enumerated by 

 Professor T. J. Parker as characteristic of the genus Dinornis.^ The 

 tracheal rings are elongate-oval in outline, the long axis being 

 32 mm., the short limm. ; and since almost all are of exactly the 

 same shape, there can be no doubt that they have not been distorted 

 by pressure or otherwise. The width of the band of bone of which 

 they are composed varies from about 5 mm. opposite the ends of the 

 long axis to 4 mm. opposite the short. 



Some of the measurements ^ of the skull are given below. 



^ " On the Cranial Osteology, Classification, and Phylogeny of the DinornithidaB": 

 Trans. Zool. Soc, vol. xiii (1895), pp. 417, 418. 



^ Measurements taken according to the rules laid down by Professor T. J. Parker 

 in the paper above referred to. 



