II.— ZOOLOGY. 



AuT. XII. — On Harpagornis, an Extinct Genus of Gigantic Raptorial Birds 



of New Zealand, 



By Julius Haast, Ph.D., F.RS., Director of the Canterbury Museum. 



\_Read heforz the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, Ath June, and 2nd July, 1873.] 



Plates VII., VIII., IX. 



(Abstract.)* 

 In a paper read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, in 1871,t 

 I offered the first account of the discovery of a few bones belonging to a 

 gigantic bird of prey, which were obtained with a considerable quantity of 

 Moa bones in the turbary deposits of Glenmark, a locality which will ever be 

 celebrated in the scientific annals of New Zealand as the spot which, doubtless, 

 has furnished the largest quantity and variety of bones available for the 

 elucidation of the anatomy of the wonderful, wingless, struthious birds of this 

 country. 



The bones described in that paper consisted of a left femur, two ungual 

 phalanges, and a rib, all belonging to the same specimen. 



Since the publication of those first notes, further excavations were 

 undertaken in the same locality ; and in following down the swampy water- 

 course from which these few remains of Ha/rpagornis were previously obtained 

 a further series of bones was discovered, which, on examination, j)roved to be 

 another portion of the same skeleton described in that first memoir. 



The bones recently obtained were scattered over the bottom of the turbary 

 deposit along the old water-course, 6ft. to 7ft. below the surface, amongst the 

 remains of decaying swam])y vegetation. They were mixed up with pieces of 

 drift timber, and with a considerable number of Moa bones, several of them 

 belonging to the larger species [Din. giganteus var. rnaximus, and Din. rohustus). 

 \ The bones obtained during these latter excavations consisted of the 

 following : — right and left metatarsus, right and left tibia, right and left fibida, 

 right and left ulna, right and left radius (one fragmentary), right and left 

 scapula, one rib, five phalanges, four ungual phalanges. 



* At tlie request of the aixthor, the publication of this paper at full length has 

 been deferred until all the illustrations can be published of natural aize, iu t^uarto fox-ni. 

 —En. 



t Trans. N.Z. Inst., Vol. IV., p. 192. 



