1850.] MANTELL ON THE GEOLOGY OF NEW ZEALAND. 333 



Infusorial earth from Lake Waihora. — I will close this account of 

 the microscopic organisms by stating, that some white earth resembling 

 magnesia in appearance, collected from the bed of the vast lake on the 

 south-east of Banks' Peninsula, is made up of the usual lacustrine 

 species and genera of Biatomacece ; viz. Gallionella, Bacillaria, 

 Gomphonema, Micrasterias, Synhedra ; " Meloseira, resembling 

 M. varians, Cosmarium margaritaceunfi, and Rimularia viridis^ — 

 M^r. Williamson. 



Mr. Henry Deane, of Clapham Common, informs me, that a few 

 years since, a white earth was exported from New Zealand as native 

 carbonate of magnesia ; it was nothing more than the usual lacustrine 

 organic deposits formed by the accumulation of innumerable minute 

 frustules of Biatomacece. 



Fossil Remains of Birds. 



I now enter upon the examination of those remarkable relics which 

 have invested the Palaeontology of the Islands of New Zealand with 

 the highest interest, — the remains of the Moa or Dinornis, Pal- 

 apteryx, and other genera of birds of which no living species are known 

 to naturalists. The collection of bones of the Class Aves, transmitted 

 by my son in 1847, amounted to between 700 and 800 specimens : 

 the present one comprises about .'^OO, and 25 or 30 belonging to dogs 

 and seals. The birds' bones are of various kinds of Dinornis and 

 related genera, and of contemporaneous birds identical with, or closely 

 resembling existing species of Albatros {Biomedea chlororhynchus). 

 Penguin {Aptenodytes), Water Hen {Brachypteryx), Rail (Notornis), 

 the nocturnal Parrot of New Zealand (Nestor), and the Apteryx. 



In the catalogue accompanying the specimens the following are 

 enumerated : viz. skulls and mandibles 8, tympanic bones 8, vertebrae 

 90, pelves 11, femora 17, tibiae 17, fibulae 10, tarso-metatarsals 23, 

 phalangeals 90, ungueals 40 ; detached ribs, pubis, ischium, sacrum, 

 and portions of sterna. A few bones of the anterior extremities or 

 wings occur of Penguin, Albatros, and some unknown species ; but 

 not even a fragment that can be referred to the large Struthious forms. 



About 200 bones are from the same locality in the North Island 

 as those I had the honour of placing before the Society in 1848. The 

 remainder are from the Middle Island, and chiefly from Waikouaiti, 

 already mentioned. 



On the former occasion the nature and position of the menaccanite 

 sand-beds in which the bones from Te Rangatapu, in the North Island, 

 were imbedded, were described as fully as the materials transmitted to 

 me would allow. I have nothing to add to that description, as my 

 son has not been able to revisit the spot and confirm or correct my 

 previous statements ; but in his last letter (dated Port Levi, Banks' 

 Peninsula, September 1849), he mentions the discovery in the North 

 Island of several extensive caverns lined with stalactites, about 1 7^ 

 miles inland from the Waingongoro bone-bed, and that bones of 

 Dinornis and other animals had been found in their stalagmitic and 



microscopic manipulation is well known. Mr. Rupert Jones also had the kindness 

 to prepare many slides to assist my examination of the various earths sent by my 

 son. 



