260 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
On the publication of the volume in 1839, one hundred 
extra copies of the paper were struck off, and these I distributed 
in every quarter of the islands of New Zealand where attention 
to such evidences was likely to be attracted. 
At that date their acquisition to Great Britain was mainly 
promoted by the “ New Zealand Company,” whose agent. Cap- 
tain William Wakefield, was zealously carrying out the princi- 
ples of colonisation advocated by his brother, Edward Gibbon 
Wakefield. Through J. R. Gowen, Esq., a director of the com- 
pany, the distribution of my paper was recommended and 
efficiently carried out by Captain Wakefield. 
The missionary promptly worked in the track of the colonist. 
Imperial recognition became inevitable. First a Governor, 
then a Bishop, Dr. Selwyn; afterwards a Chief Justice, my 
friend Sir William Martin, went out. Upon each and all I 
pressed the claims of the possible big bird of New Zealand to 
attention according to leisure and opportunity. The years 1840 
and 1841 passed, and I began to doubt, but misgiving went no 
further than as to locality ; of the bird itself I may say I was 
“cock-sure.” Toward the close of 1842 came the welcome 
letter of the Rev. William Cotton, M.A., companion of the 
Bishop, announcing the discovery of big bones in the North 
Island ; and this was followed by the arrival of a boxful trans- 
mitted by a fellow- missionary, now the Right Rev. Bishop Wil- 
liams, to Dr. Buckland, by whom these specimens were generously 
confided to me for description. They included a nearly perfect 
specimen of the bone of which I had received the shaft, and 
with it the other bones of the hind limb of the same bird. 
These afforded adequate grounds for defining a genus Dinornis , 
and a species struthioides. But what I was not prepared to 
see, and saw with amazement, were similar evidences of a 
larger species of the same genus, a Dinornis ingens , and other 
remains of a still larger kind, Dinornis giganteus . But might 
not these be parts of individuals of the one and the same 
gigantic bird at different stages of growth ? The answer to this 
question is given by the well-marked characters of immaturity 
which the bones of the bird’s leg display, and especially the third or 
metatarsal bone, which is a compound one, and does not acquire 
the consolidation or coalescence of its three or more constituent 
elements until maturity is reached. Moreover, with the above 
evidences of birds of the same genus, surpassing in size any 
previously known, were others of smaller size, also of full-grown 
birds. They indicated the former existence in New Zealand of 
a Dinornis casuari/nus , a Dinornis dromioides , a Dinornis 
otidiformis , so called as agreeing in size respectively with the 
cassowary, the emu, and the bustard. Of the latter I subse- 
quently received remains justifying its title to a distinct genus, 
