ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXXVI 
tic birds known to the natives of New Zealand as the Moa, and to 
which he assigned the name of Dinornis, the views of this compara- 
tive anatomist, since so well borne out by abundant proof, being 
founded on a mere shaft of a thigh-bone a few inches long, with both 
extremities deficient,—a beautiful illustration of the chain of infer- 
ences so strikingly pointed out as available by the great Cuvier,—Dr. 
Mantell, in the true spirit of science, at once placed the collection at 
the disposal of the Professor for examination. 
As far as the researches of Prof. Owen have as yet extended, the 
bones sent home by Mr. Walter Mantell are referable to five genera, 
the crania and mandibles of four of which were previously unknown. 
The first genus is the Dinornis, ‘now restricted by Prof. Owen to 
the birds which possessed a skull and beaks essentially different from 
any form either recent or fossil.” The form of the cranium, espe- 
cially of the temporal and occipital regions, is wholly unlike any 
hitherto observed in the class of birds, and approaches that of rep- 
tiles. Of this genus seven species have been determined, namely, 
Dinornis giganteus, D. robustus, D. ingens, D. casuarinus, D. gera- 
noides, D. curtus, D. didiformis. Some of the bones of this genus, 
even those of young birds, were of colossal proportions. 
The second genus is Palapteryx ; the third, dptornis; the fourth, 
Notornis ; and the fifth, Nestor, a genus of nocturnal owl-like par- 
rots, of which only two living species are known, one (NV. hypopolius) 
restricted to New Zealand, the other (NV. productus) to Phillip Island, 
one not more than five miles in extent. What further researches may 
find in this collection, which also contaims fragments of egg-shells, re- 
mains to be ascertained: enough, however, has already been accom- 
plished to afford most important additions to our knowledge of those 
remarkable birds, the Moas, some of which, at least, may have 
lived to a period comparatively as recent as the first entrance of man 
upon the New Zealand islands ; thus occupying a place of somewhat 
_ the same kind with the Dodo in geological history. 
To the mode of occurrence of these bones we shall have to refer 
hereafter in its place, but we must not here omit the remarks of Dr. 
Mantell, accompanying this communication, respecting the present 
grouping of peculiar forms of animals and plants upon different areas 
of dry land, constituting centres or foci of creation of certain organic 
types ; nor those bearing upon peculiar faunze and flor, the remains 
of which are found entombed in various fossiliferous deposits. He 
calls attention to the fauna of New Zealand, in which the class of 
birds so prevails, to the almost entire exclusion of mammals and rep- 
tiles; and associating this fauna with the flora of the same country, 
wherein ferns, club mosses, &c. predominate to the almost entire 
exclusion of the graminacez, compares the whole with the fossils 
discovered in the carboniferous and triassic rocks. Dr. Mantell 
then adverts to the peculiar fauna and flora of Australia and Tas- 
mania, to which allusion is elsewhere made, and their bearmg upon 
the European deposits of the oolitic time, remarking also upon the 
reptilian character of the fauna of the Gallapagos Islands, distant 
from other lands. Quoting Mr. Darwin as stating these islands to 
