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presented the treasures to the Museum of the Royal College of 
Surgeons, and Prof. Owen constructed out of them the gigantic 
legs of Dinornis giganteus, which are one of the greatest curiosities 
of said Museum , legs over 5 feet high , which intimate a bird of 
at least 97a feet in height. 1 This is by far the most colossal from 
all the birds known. The tibia , the shin-bone alone, measures 
2 feet 10 inches. 
Upon South Island it was Mr. Percy Earl and Dr. Mackellar, 
who made collections at the mouth of the Waikouaiti, North of 
the Otago peninsula. But by far the most copious harvest was 
that gathered by Mr. Walther Mantell in the years 1847 — 1850 
upon North and South Islands. Pie had collected more than 1000 
separate bones and also fragments of eggs, which were bought by 
the British Museum, and furnished Prof. Owen the rich material 
for this celebrated works on the extinct families of Dinornis and 
Palapteryx . In this collection there was the famous skeleton of the 
elephant-footed Moa (Dinornis elepkantopus ) from Ruamoa, three miles 
South of Oamaru Point (First Rocky Head), Province Otago, a 
species, which while it fell far short of the height of Dinornis gigan - 
tens, — measuring hardly over 5 feet, — was distinguished by an 
extraordinarily massive construction of the bones , and , as Mr. Owen 
says and indicates by the nomenclature , of all birds represents most 
the type of the pachyderms. Very appropriately, therefore, this 
skeleton has been placed in the British Museum by the side of the 
gigantic elephant Mastodon ohioticus . 
Colonel Wakefield, Dr. Thomson and many others have also 
made up collections partly on North, and partly on South Island, 2 
and according to Prof. Owen there are already 12 to 14 different 
species of Moas known. 3 Most of them have three toes like the 
1 From I he leg-bones Owen calculated the height of another species, Dinornis 
robuslus , at 10 feet 0 inches. But Dr. Thomson judges the height of those birds to 
have been 13 to 14 feet. (Edinb. New Philos. Journal V. LV1. p. 277.) 
2 The large collection of Moa bones, which Sir George Grey had placed in 
the Governor's house in Auckland, was unfortunately lost in the conflagration of 
said building in 1848. 
3 The names mentioned in Prof. Owen's treatises, are: Dinornis giganteus, 
