example of one of the supposed extinct contemporaries of the Moa, thai he immediately wrote home, and 

 mentioned that the skull and beaks wore alike in the recent and fossil specimens, and that the abbreviated and 

 feeble development of the wings, both in their bones and plumage, were in perfect accordance with the indications 

 afforded by the fossil humerus and sternum found by him at Waingongoro, and now in the British Museum, as 

 pointed out by Professor Owen in the Memoirs above referred to. 



" In concluding this brief narrative of the discovery of a living example of a genus of birds once 

 contemporary with the colossal Moa, and hitherto only known by its fossil remains, I beg to remark that this 

 highly interesting fact tends to confirm the conclusions expressed in my communications to the Zoological 

 Society, namely, that the Dinornis, Palapteryx, and related forms, were coeval with some of the existing species 

 of birds peculiar to New Zealand, and that their final extinction took place at no very distant period, and long 

 after the advent of the aboriginal Maories." 



This bird resembles a Porphyrio in the shape of its bill and general colouring, and a Tribonyx in the 

 structure of its feet, while in its feeble and undeveloped Avings and the form of its tail, it differs from both. 



I rould is of opinion that the habits and economy of the Moho would resemble the Tribonyx rather than 

 the Porphyrio; that from its exceeding rareness it is of a shy, retiring disposition; that its powers of flight 

 being feeble, it depends upon its swiftness of foot for safely escaping its natural enemies; that from the thickness 

 of its plumage and the great length of its back feathers, we may argue that it prefers low, damp situations, 

 marshes, banks of rivers, and the shelter of dripping ferns. It is probably partly aquatic, but from the 

 structure of its feet, it is more terrestrial in its habits than members of the genus Porphyrio. 



Head, neck, breast, upper part of the abdomen, and flanks, purplish blue; rest of upper surfaces, wing 

 e iverts, and tertiaries, dark olive green tipped with verditer green; a band of rich blue at the nape of the neck 

 separates the purplish blue of the head from the green of the body ; wings, rich deep blue ; greater wing coverts 

 tipped with metallic green, forming crescentic bands on the expanded wings ; tail, dark green; lower part of 

 abdomen, vent and thigh, dull bluish black ; under tail coverts, white ; bill and feet, bright red. 



Total length of body, twenty-six inches. 



Habitats: Lord ITowe Island, Norfolk Tsland, New Zealand. 



