232 Transactions. — Zoology, 



Art. XXIX. — On Harpagornis (third paper). 



By Professor Julius von Haast, Ph.D., F.R.S. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterhury, 1st Jubj, 1880.] 



Plate IX. 

 In two former papers pubhshed in the Transactions,* I have described 

 those portions of the bones of a large diurnal bird of prey, coyitempo- 

 raneovs icith the Binornithidcc, named by me Harpafjornis, Avhich were 

 obtained from the turbary and loess deposits of Glenmark and from a rock- 

 shelter of Otago. Since then Mr. B. S. Booth, of Hyde (Otago), has made 

 very interesting excavations in some turbary beds situated at Hamilton, in 

 Otago, of which he has given us an exhaustive account in Vols. VII. f and 

 IX. of our Transactions. A great quantity of moa bones was obtained, 

 belonging to half a dozen different species, and to birds of all ages. In ad- 

 dition to these bones, a considerable number of Cnemiomis remains were 

 discovered, of which the turbary deposits of Glenmark did not contain a 

 single specimen, and a few bones of Harpagornis. Of the two latter I was 

 fortunate enough to obtain a portion from Mr. Booth, which are now in the 

 Canterbury Museum. The bones of Harpagornis, although few in number, 

 are nevertheless of considerable interest, containing amongst them the 

 mandible, or lower jaw-bone, hitherto unknown to us, and which doubtless, 

 as I shall show in the sequel, belonged to the tibia, the smaller of the two 

 ulnas, and the metacarpus, found with it in the same locality. The bird to 

 which the mandible belonged was, as the measurements will show, of some- 

 what smaller dimensions than Harpagornis assimilis, from Glenmark. Al- 

 though designating the latter by a specific name, I am inclined, as pre- 

 viously observed, to think that it was only the smaller male form of Harpa- 

 gornis moorei, which in that case may be regarded as the female. 



Prof. E. Owen, upon receiving the casts of the Harpagornis bones from 

 Glenmark, has confirmed my views, that they belonged to a gigantic extinct 

 harrier, and a study of the mandible in question has strengthened to my 

 mind this hypothesis considerably. However, before offering a description 

 of these bones under review, I wish to point out that we have proof that two 

 specimens of H. assimilis were imbedded in the Hamilton peat beds. 



If we admit Mr. Booth's theory about the formation of these deposits, 

 viz., that they were formed in lagoons, obtaining their supply of water from 

 springs only, it is difficult to understand how the bones of the two birds could 

 have been brought there, unless we admit that by feeding upon the carcasses 

 of those moas perishing in the springs from some cause or other, they were 



* " Trans. N.Z. lust.," Vol. IV., p. 192, aud Vol. VI., p. 62. 

 t And not Vol. VIII., p. 12, as stated in a foot note to Mr. Booth's article in Vol. 

 IX., p. S65. 



