330 



PALEONTOLOGY. 



The most extraordinary additions to the present class have 

 been obtained from the superficial deposits, turbaries, and 

 caves in New Zealand.* This island is remarkable for the 

 absence of aboriginal species of land-mammals, and for the 

 presence of a small bird with very rudimental wings, and the 



keel-less ster- 

 num and loose 

 plumage of the 

 Struthious or- 

 der, but of a 

 peculiar genus 

 called Ajpteryx: 

 the legs are very 

 robust, and have 

 three front toes 

 and a very small 

 back toe. Birds 

 resembling the 

 Apteryx in the 

 shape of the ster- 

 num and bony 

 structure of the 

 pelvis and hind 

 limbs, some re- 

 taining also the 

 small back toe, 

 others appar- 

 ently without it, 

 formerly existed 

 in New Zealand under different specific forms ranging in 

 height from 3 feet to 10 feet. They have been referred by 



* These remains are described in eight memoirs by the writer, published in 

 the third and fourth volumes of the Transactions of the Zoological Society of 

 London. The description of the first fragment of the bone, indicative of the 

 Dinornis, is in vol. iii., p. 39, pi. 3. 



Fig. 111. 



A. Dinornis elephantopus. 



B. Leg-bones of Dinornis giganteus. 



b, r. Impressions called Ornithichnites. 



