1850.] MANTELL ON THE GEOLOGY OF NEW ZEALAND. 337 



and have numbered every bone seriatim, to enable you to articulate 

 them. This unlucky Moa, happily for science, must have been mired 

 in the swamp, and, being unable to extricate himself, have perished 

 on the spot. These splendid and unique fossils were presented to me 

 by Mr. Jones. From the soil near them I dug out part of the lower 

 jaw of a Sea-lion {Phocu leonina), which is enclosed." 



No other locality in the Middle Island is specified by my son as 

 containing birds' bones ; but he incidentally mentions having seen 

 fragments here and there in the subsoil of the plains. Mr. Alfred 

 Wills, who has great local knowledge of New Zealand, and espe- 

 cially of the Middle Island, informs me that in the sand-spit near the 

 mouth of the Molyneux river (now called the Cleuther), fifty miles 

 south of Otago and north-east of the Kaihiku range, relics of Dinornis 

 have been found ; and also that fifteen miles inland from the mouth 

 of the same river there is a hill about 100 feet high, called " Moa 

 Hill, " in consequence of bones having been observed in the superficial 

 soil near its summit. The same intelligent traveller assures me that 

 it is not uncommon to find small heaps of quartz pebbles wherever 

 the bones are met with in any considerable number, and that these 

 stones are supposed to have been swallowed by the birds. There is 

 a native tradition that the Moa formerly inhabited the mountainous 

 district of the Kaihiku range, which runs inland a few miles south of 

 the Molyneux river. 



I will now cm'sorily notice some of the most interesting osteological 

 specimens in the collection ; but I shall m a great measure avoid mi- 

 nute descriptions ; for anatomical details, though of the highest im- 

 portance in a physiological point of view, come more legitimately 

 under the consideration of the zoologist than of the geologist ; and I 

 reserve for another Society the figures and descriptions of the new 

 and most interesting specimens. 



Dinornis, Palapteryx, ^c. — The osteological characters of the 

 extinct struthious birds of New Zealand have been so accurately 

 and clearly determined by Professor Owen, in his memoirs on 

 the Dinornis in the Zoological Transactions (vol. iii.), that I found 

 no difiiculty in assigning the principal bones in the collection to the 

 several species of Dinornis, Palapteryx, and Aptornis, established by 

 that eminent anatomist. The specimens from the Waingongoro de- 

 posit in the North Island, chiefly belong to the smaller species, namely 

 Dinornis didiformis, D. curtus, Aptornis otidiformis, with Dinornis 

 casuarinus, and a few of D. gig aniens. The bones from Waikouaiti 

 in the Middle Island are principally of the most gigantic birds, viz. 

 Dinornis giganteus, Palapteryx ingens, associated with D. struthi- 

 oides, D. dromioides, D. casuarinus, and D. crassus. 



From both localities there are specimens which apparently belong 

 ta some undescribed species and genera of birds ; and bones of a Dog, 

 and of two species of Seal. 



Some of the bones from Waikouaiti are of colossal size. The head 

 of one tibia is 2 1 inches in circumference ; femora, 1 6 inches long, 

 and 8^ inches in circumference at the middle of the shaft ; vertebrae 

 and portions of pelves of proportionate magnitude ; a tarso-metatarsal 



2 B 2 



