Zoological Society. 61 



cranium, with its strongly marked ridges, processes and muscular 

 depressions, is precisely calculated for the adequate attachment of 

 the muscular masses arising from the cervical vertebrae. 



The second form of cranium and beak, referred to the genus 

 Palapteryx, indicates that genus to be a member of the true Stru- 

 thionida, and by its affinities to have been intermediate between 

 Dromaius and Apteryx. 



The Notornis is a struthious or brevipennate form of the Rallida, 

 intermediate between Porphyrio and Brachypteryx. The remains of 

 the beaks of the Psittaceous bird are not distinguishable generically 

 from those of the genus Nestor of New Zealand. 



Thus, observed Prof. Owen, " those concordances in the geogra- 

 phical distribution of existing and recently extinct forms of the 

 warm-blooded vertebrate classes which are illustrated by the remains 

 of Elephants, Rhinoceroses, Hippopotamuses, Hyaenas, large Bovines 

 and Cervines, in the pleistocene deposits of Asia and Europe, — by 

 the absence of these and the presence of gigantic extinct Sloths, 

 Armadillos and Anteaters, in the coeval deposits of South America, 

 and of huge fossil Kangaroos, Wombats and Dasyures in the bone - 

 caves and freshwater deposits of Australia, — have received new and 

 striking elucidations from the repeated discovery, in the cavernous 

 fissures, turbaries, and river-beds of New Zealand, of the remains of 

 gigantic forms of birds allied to those small species, Apteryx and 

 Brachypteryx, which constituted the highest representatives of the 

 warm-blooded classes in the island, until the advent of Man led to 

 the introduction of its present terrestrial mammals." 



The author in conclusion repeated his acknowledgments to Dr. 

 Mantell for the prompt accordance of the privilege of examining and 

 describing these rare and interesting remains and expressed his 

 high sense of the scientific value of the labours by which that emi- 

 nent geologist's intelligent and enterprising son, Mr. Walter Man- 

 tell, had made so great an addition to the materials for developing 

 the natural history of New Zealand. 



The memoir was accompanied with numerous drawings of the 

 specimens described, which will form plates 52 — 56 of the third vo- 

 lume of the ■ Transactions.' 



On the conclusion of Professor Owen's communication, Dr. Man- 

 tell expressed his opinion, that although the specimens formerly sent 

 to this country were obtained from the beds of rivers and mountain- 

 streams, and were regarded by the gentlemen who collected them 

 as of very recent date, in reality they belonged to a period of as 

 high antiquity, in relation to the surface-soil of New Zealand, as 

 the diluvium containing bones of the Irish Elk, Mammoth, &c. to 

 that of England. He observed that Mr. Colenso, Mr. Taylor, and 

 Mr. Williams, who sent to England the bones figured and described 

 by Professor Owen in the ' Zoological Transactions,' vol. hi., agree 

 in this remarkable fact, that in some places, where the loamy marl in 

 which their specimens were found was observed in situ, it was covered 

 by several feet of strata of marine and freshwater sand, gravel and 



