202 EXTINCT BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. [CH. IV 



New Zealand. The characteristic Australian types are 

 either absent or but feebly represented. The South 

 American genus Microscolex is represented by six distinct 

 species. 



In Mr Lydekker's recently issued "Catalogue of the 

 Fossil Birds " in the British Museum is an exhaustive list 

 of the extinct flightless or wingless birds of New Zealand, 

 which were wonderfully numerous; they may be fairly 

 considered as part of the existing fauna of the island, 

 since they have been in existence there up to the historic 

 period, or disappeared from the island at a period only 

 just antecedent to it. A new genus, Pseudapteryx, with 

 but a single species, represents a bird hardly different 

 from Apteryx and of about the size of the comparatively 

 small Apteryx oweni. Of Dinornis itself no less than four 

 species are allowed, many of those formerly referred to 

 the genus being now better placed in closely related but 

 different genera. These are Megalapteryx, Anomalopteryx, 

 Emeus, Pachyorrds, with at any rate 17 species between 

 them. Another very remarkable and characteristic inhabi- 

 tant of New Zealand is the large goose, Gnemiornis, which 

 is regarded as a near relative of the Australian Cereopsis ; 

 it was a bird with apparently no powers of flight, for the 

 keel of the sternum, as in the Struthious birds, is aborted. 

 The bird was considerably larger than the existing 

 Cereopsis. There is one certainly known species of the 

 genus, Gnemiornis calcitrans, and one doubtful one, to 

 which Mr Lydekker does not give a name. A large rail, 

 Aptornis, is another inhabitant of New Zealand whose 

 remains, belonging to two species, are found associated 



