2io PROFESSOR OWEN CH. vn. 



which arrived to-day. Another is on the road. 

 My father, before going on to the Royal Society, 

 stayed to see it opened. We took out a pelvis, a 

 few vertebras — two enormous — and the femur of 

 the gigantic bird.' 



These bones were first sent to Dr. Buckland 

 by ' a zealous and successful Church missionary 

 long resident in New Zealand, the Rev. William 

 Williams.' This gentleman confirmed the tra- 

 ditional statement of the natives of New Zealand, 

 relative to the huge bones which they brought 

 him from time to time, in regard to the class of 

 animals to which they belonged. 2 ■ He has, 

 therefore,' Owen writes, 'a just claim to share in 

 the honour of the discovery of the dinornis, since, 

 while collecting and comparing its osseous remains, 

 he was wholly unaware that its more immediate 

 affinities had already been determined in England.' 

 Mr. Williams, in a letter to Dr. Buckland in 1842, 

 shows that he was not aware of the fact that 

 Owen had received and described the fragment 

 of the femur of the dinornis. ' By means of the 

 specimens first transmitted by Mr. Williams to 

 Dr. Buckland, and generously confided to me by 

 that distinguished geologist,' Owen continues, ' I 

 was enabled to define the generic characters of 

 the dinornis, as afforded by the bones of the 

 hind extremity. By the favour of a like disposition 

 of Mr. Williams's second and richer collection of 



2 Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand, p. 76. 



