181 
umbilicatus, Cypraea, Buccinum undatum, Cypriua Islan- 
dica. 
Footprint of “Dinornis,” Bones of “Dinornis” and “Dodo.” 
By John Plant, F.G.S. 
The author stated that in 1839 a fragment of a femur of 
a bird was sent from New Zealand to Professor Owen. 
From it the learned osteologist felt authorized in establish- 
ing the genus “Dinornis,” to include a race of giant 
Struthious birds which had not been seen alive in New 
Zealand since Pleistocene times. In the course of the 
thirty-seven years since 1839 the remains of these birds 
have been found in immense quantities and in many places 
in New Zealand, buried either in peat, mud, and sand on 
the level plains, marshy tracks, or shores, but recently 
raised above the tides. Professor Owen has given anatomi- 
cal details of about fourteen species, ranging from 17 feet 
high down to the size of the South American Khea. His 
descriptions are to be seen in twenty “Memoirs on the 
Dinornis,” published in the “Transactions of the London 
Zoological Society.” 
Bones of the Dinornis are found associated with the debris 
of cooking-pits and kitchen-middens of the aborigines of 
New Zealand. The bones show evidences of having been 
burnt or roasted and with cuts upon them as with flint 
knives. There is a tradition that the old natives fed upon 
the flesh and made cloaks from the gaudy coloured feathers 
of the Moa. Egg shells in fragments have been found in 
these cooking-pits, and recently, in 1876, footprints of the 
Dinornis have been discovered by Mr. C. J. Bold, C.E., on 
the sandy shores at Poverty Bay, on the western coast. 
North Island, at the spot where Captain Cook flrst landed 
in New Zealand in 1769 and had his hostile encounter with 
the natives. The great navigator describes Poverty Bay as 
an ‘‘unfortunate and inhospitable place, named by the 
