Zoological Society. 3003 



November 12. — Mr. Yarrell, Esq., V. P., in the chair. 



Professor Owen read a paper * On Dinornis : Part V., on the cranium of the large 

 species called giganteus and ingens.' He commenced by referring to a former me- 

 moir, in which four generic types of structure had been determined in fossil crania of 

 birds from New Zealaad, — viz., Nestor, Notomis, Palapteryx, and Dinornis proper ; 

 and proceeded to describe an additional series of fossil skulls obtained by Governor 

 Sir George Grey, from a cave in the district, which lies between the River Waikato 

 and Mount Tongariro, in the North Island. The most remarkable of these specimens 

 was an almost entire skull, measuring eight inches in length, and five inches across 

 the broadest part of the cranium ; which in the extent of the ossified part of the man- 

 dible and its downward curvature, resembled the smaller skull described in a former 

 memoir, and there referred to Dinornis. In the structure of the occiput and base of 

 the cranium this large skull more resembled the characters of that ascribed to Palap- 

 teryx. The indications of the muscular attachments, and the form and size of the 

 massive beak bespoke the great power and force with which it had been habitually 

 applied in the living bird. Its anatomical characters were minutely detailed. Com- 

 parisons of the area of the occipital foramen for the transmission of the spinal marrow 

 with that of the spinal canal in different vertebrae, were made with a view of determin- 

 ing the species to which the cranium in question might belong ; and the peculiar con- 

 traction of the spinal canal in the vertebrae of Dinornis, as compared with that in the 

 ostrich, was pointed out. The inference deduced was, that the cranium, notwith- 

 standing its great size, belonged probably to the species called Palapteryx ingens, 

 which was the second in point of size. A mutilated cranium of a much younger bird, 

 showing all the sutures, but of nearly equal size with the skull first described, might 

 belong to the Dinornis giganteus. Two crania referable to two distinct species of 

 smaller birds of Palapteryx were described, and sections of the cranium were shown to 

 demonstrate the form and character of the brain. In the collection transmitted by 

 Governor Grey, Prof. Owen had, for the first time, recognized a portion of a diminu- 

 tive wing-bone, similar, in the absence of the usual processes for the muscles of flight, 

 to that in the Apteryx, and confirmatory both by this character and its extreme rarity, 

 contrasted with the abundance of vertebrae and leg-bones that had been transmitted, of 

 the inference as to the rudimental condition of the wings in the Dinornis and Pala- 

 pteryx. The memoir concluded with a description of a cranium of the Notornis, more 

 perfect than that framentary one on which the affinities of that bird to the Rallidae or 

 Rail tribe had originally been founded, and its generic distinction from Porphyrio es- 

 tablished. The specimen exhibited confirmed the accuracy of the conjectural restora- 

 tions in the figure of the original specimen in a former volume of the ' Transactions 

 of the Zoological Society.' 



Dr. Mantell read the following ' Notice of the Discovery by Mr. Walter Mantell, 

 in the Middle Island of New Zealand, of a living specimen of the Notornis, a bird 

 allied to Brachypteryx, and hitherto unknown to naturalists except in a fossil state.' 



" It was in the course of last year, on the occasion of my son's second visit to 

 the south of the Middle Island, that he had the good fortune to secure the recent No- 

 tornis, which I now submit, having previously placed it in the hands of the eminent 

 ornithologist, Mr. Gould, to figure and describe. This bird was taken by some sealers 

 who were pursuing their avocations in Dusky Bay. Perceiving the trail of a large and 

 unknown bird on the snow, with which the ground was then covered, they followed 

 the footprints till they obtained a sight of the Notornis, which their dogs instantly 



