478 Correspondence — Professor Owen. 



THE EAELIEST DISCOVERED EVIDENCE OF EXTINCT STEUTHIOFS 

 BIRDS IN NEW ZEALAND. 



Sir, — ^I have the pleasure, agreeably with your request, to inform 

 you that I have received the permission of Benjamin Bright, Esq,, 

 to deposit in the British Museum the portion of " bone of an un- 

 known Struthious bird of large size, presumed to be extinct," — ■ 

 described and figured in the third volume of the " Transactions of 

 the Zoological Society," p. 2.9, pi. iii., and subsequently determined 

 as the shaft o-f the femur of Dinornis StrutMo'ides (Owen). 



The individual who, in October, 1839,^ brought this specimen to 

 me, for sale, at the Eoyal College of Surgeons, asked ten guineas 

 for it. When I had convinced myself that it was the shaft of the 

 femur of a Bird, and that the evidence supplied by the vendor made 

 it at least probable that the specimen had been found in New 

 Zealand, I reported the circumstances to the Board of Curators of 

 the Eoyal College of Surgeons, and recommended the purchase of the 

 specimen. This was declined. I had determined, on being entrusted 

 with office in the Hunterian Museum, not to form a private collec- 

 tion, and my circumstances, in 1839, did not allow me to give ten 

 guineas for a specimen ; and this I stated to the vendor, in request- 

 ing permission to describe and figure it : which permission he 

 liberally granted. 



The specimen was purchased by Benjamin Bright, Esq., of Bristol, 

 to whom a copy of the abstract of my paper had been sent, and 

 was placed in his private museum ; which, on his decease, came into 

 the possession of his son. On communicating to this gentleman the 

 desirability of the original bone of the Dinornis being deposited in 

 the British Museum, he most liberally permitted me to submit to 

 the Trustees an offer, as a donation, of the entire Collection made 

 by his father and grandfather, including the original specimen which 

 initiated the series of papers on the Dinornis that have since ap- 

 peared in the " Zoological Transactions." 



EiCHAKD Owen. 



ON THE RELATION OF PTEEASPIS AND SCAPHASPIS. 



Sir, — Ihave but just seenMagister Schmidt's letter in the July Num- 

 ber of the Geological Magazine (p. 330). Ex cathedra utterances are 

 interesting only when the individual who indulges in them is for some 

 reason the representative of a party, or has acquired the confidence 

 of qualified critics. For Mr. Schmidt therefore to tell us that Kunth's 

 evidence appears "most satisfactory," and that the two shields 

 figured by him " are not brought into contact accidentally," is sheer 

 waste of your space and of his time. If he will have the goodness 

 to send to you some reasoning upon the existing data, or an account 



1 See "Proceedings of the Zoological Society," November 12, 1839, p. 169. 



