﻿Haast. — On an Extinct Gigantic Bird of Prey. 193 



Tn order to pay a just compliment to my friend, Mr. P. H. Moore, of 

 Glenmark, who has always afforded me every facility in his power to pursue 

 my researches upon his property, I propose the name of Harpagomis Moorei 

 for this extinct species, and I only hope that further excavations will enable 

 me to obtain at a future date a larger portion of its skeleton than the Canter- 

 bury Museum at present possesses. 



The principal bone in the collection is a left femur, it is a portion of a 



mature bird, as shown by the excellent preservation of the articular extremities 



and the sti'ongly developed muscular ridges. 



The dimensions are as follows: — ^ 



Inches. 



Total length of bone ...... 6-66 



Circumference of proximal extremity . . . 4-66 



„ „ distal ,, . . 5 '5 8 



„ „ shaft where thinnest . . 2*50 



On Plate X., fig. 1., is given a faithful representation in natural size of this 



femur (back view), and it conveys better than any measiirements or descriptions 



can do, an idea of its enormoiis size, principally if compared with the contours 



also drawn in natural size of the femur of Polioaetus leucogaster (fig. 2), the 



white-bellied Sea Eagle of Australia, and (fig. 3) of Circus assimilis, the New 



Zealand Harrier. 



This bone has all the characteristics of the femur of a diurnal bird of prey, 



some of them developed in a remarkable degree owing to its enormous size. 



The cylindrical shaft is bent forward as usual, and above the distal 



extremity it is slightly cxirved back (fig. 1 at a). I find that both the 



Polioaetus and Circus possess this curve, but the latter exhibits this peculiarity 



much more distinctly than the Australian species. The hollow on the top of 



the head is very large, and measures "42 inch across. 



The trochanteric ridge is w^ll developed, and the outer side is very rough, 



showing that muscles of great strength and thickness must have been 



attached to it. 



The inter-muscular linear ridges are well raised above the shaft, of which 



the one extending from the fore and outer angle of the epitrochanteric 



articular surface to the outer condyle is the most prominent. 



The pits for the attachment of the ligaments in the intei'-condyloid fossa 



are strongly marked. The femur is pneumatic, the proximal orifice is large 



and ear-shaped, resembling in form more the air passage of the New Zealand 



Circus than that of the Australian Sea Eagle, the only two bones I possessed 



for comparison. The junction of the head with the shaft is more deeply cut 



and more distinctly defined than in Polioaetus, the same being the case with 



Circus, so that the trochanter of both are more rounded and distinct than in the 



Australian Eagle. 



