373 



its species — formerly occupied their place amid the fern-brakes and tur- 

 baries of New Zealand. And, again, the number of the species of Stru- 

 thionida; in this island equalled that in all the rest of the world, as 

 registered in the catalogues of Ornithology. 



Now, since all the larger existing Struthious birds derive their sub- 

 sistence from the vegetable kingdom, we may hope to receive from the 

 botanist an elucidation of the circumstances which favoured the existence 

 of so many large birds of this order in the remote and restricted locality 

 where alone their remains have hitherto been found. It seems, at least, 

 most natural to suppose that some peculiarity in the vegetation of New 

 Zealand adapted that island to be the seat of apterous tridactyle birds, so 

 unusually numerous in species and some of them of so stupendous a size. 



The predominance of plants of the Fern-tribe, and the nutritious qua- 

 lities of the roots of the species most common in New Zealand, are the 

 characteristics of its Flora which appear to have been the conditions of 

 the former most singular Fauna of this island. Some at least of the cha- 

 racters of the skeleton of the Dinoruis may well have related to rhizo- 

 phagous habits. The unusual strength of the neck, the size and deep 

 implantation of the nuchal muscles and the unusual development of the 

 temporal muscles, indicate the application of the beak to a more laborious 

 task than the mere plucking of seeds, fruits, or herbage. The present 

 small Apteryx of New Zealand has a relatively stronger neck than any of 

 the existing Strut hionida;, in relation to the needful power of perforating 

 the earth for the worms and insects which constitute its food. Such small 

 objects cannot be supposed to have afforded sustenance to the gigantic Di- 

 nomithes : but the still more robust proportions of their cervical vertebrae 

 and especially of their spinous processes, — so striking when contrasted 

 with the corresponding vertebrae of the Ostrich or Emeu, — may well have 

 been the foundation of those forces by which the beak was associated with 

 the feet in the labour of dislodging the farinaceous roots of the ferns 

 that grow in characteristic abundance over the soil of New Zealand*. 



* " New Zealand is favoured by one great natural advantage, namely, that the inhabitants can 

 never perish from famine. The whole country abounds witli fern ; and the roots of this plant, if not 



