554 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, 
Jn 1834, Owen was appointed to the chair of Comparative 
Anatomy at St. Bartholemew’s Hospital, which was specially founded 
for him, and was also elected First Hunterian Professor of Compara- 
tive Anatomy and Physiology at the College of Surgeons. But his 
name will be best remembered in connection with New Zealand by 
his researches on fossil remains found here, which led him to the 
discovery of a genus of extinct birds, of a gigantic size, formerly 
inhabiting this country. A fragment of fossil bone brought by a 
a sailor from New Zealand, having been submitted to and dismissed 
by many, was investigated by Owen in 1839; he said it had belonged 
toa gigantic bird, which he subsequently asserted to have been a 
bird without wings. From this circumstance his researches on these 
fossils have extended until they now form the subject matter of 
twenty memoirs presented at various periods to the Zoological Society 
of London: these memoirs have been collected and were published in 
1878 in two large volumes, entitled “Memoirs of Extinct Wingless 
Birds of New Zealand.” 
In his first memoir on the subject, given in November, 1839, 
Owen said—‘“ The discovery of the relic of a large Struthious bird in 
New Zealand is one of peculiar interest, on account of the remarkable 
character of the existing fauna of that island, which still includes one 
of the most extraordinary and anomalous genera of the Struthious 
Order, and because of the close analogy which the event indicated by 
the present relic offers to the extinction of the Dodo of the islands of 
the Mauritius and Rodriguez. So far as a judgment can be formed 
from a single fragment, it seems probable that the bird, to which the 
above-described bone belonged, presented proportions more nearly 
resembling those of the Dodo than of any of the existing Struthionide. 
In the partially explored state of the islands of New Zealand it would 
be premature to pronounce the large Struthious bird thus indicated 
to be extinct. The present notice, it is hoped, may tend to accelerate 
its discovery, if it be still in being, or may stimulate to the collection 
of the remaining parts of the skeleton, if the species no longer exists.” 
Copies of this memoir were at that time sent to many residents 
in New Zealand; and letters were addressed to a few personally 
known to the author of it, strongly urging the prosecution of inquiries 
among the natives as to the existence of such fossil or semi-fossil 
remains. And soon a large box of specimens arrived addressed by 
the Rey. W. Williams, church missionary in New Zealand, to Dr. 
Buckland, accompanied by a letter, dated ‘Poverty Bay, New 
Zealand, February 28, 1842,” suggesting that one set of the specimens 
should be retained in the Geological Museum at Oxford. This series 
was first submitted to Owen, and they confirmed the prevision that 
the great Struthious bird of New Zealand was a heavier and less 
swift species, with shorter and more powerful limbs than the Ostrich; 
they demonstrated also the former existence in New Zealand of birds 
more than double the bulk of the largest African Ostrich. 
Five species of these extinct wingless birds were soon after deter- 
mined and the name of Dinoris was given to the largest. Specimens 
from different parts of both islands of New Zealand began rapidly 
to follow each other, and these contributed to the description of three 
other genera—Palapteryx, Aptornis, and Notornis. The latter genus 
