XXIV 
INTRODUCTION. 
Subsequently another species, coming from the extreme North, was determined by Prof. Owen, 
and named Dinornis gracilis, on account of the remarkable length and slenderness of its legs. 
But there seemed to be practically no limit to the ornithic wonders revealed by the Post-pliocene 
deposits of New Zealand. Professor Owen had already well nigh exhausted the vocabulary of terms 
expressive of largeness by naming his successive discoveries ingens, giganteus, crassus, robustus , and 
elephantojms, when he had to employ the superlative in Dinornis maximus to distinguish a species 
far exceeding in stature even the stately Dinornis giganteus. In this colossal bird, as the Professor 
has well remarked, some of the cervical vertebrae almost equal in size the neck-bones of a horse ! 
The skeleton in the British Museum, even in an easy standing posture, measures eleven feet in 
height, and there is evidence that some of these feathered giants attained to a still greater 
stature. 
A fair idea may be gained of its proportionate size 
from the accompanying woodcut, which appeared some 
years ago in ‘ The Illustrated London News,’ represent- 
ing the entire left leg of a Moa (now in the Madras 
Government Museum) obtained by Major Michael, of 
the Madras Staff Corps, from the Glenmark swamp, 
about 40 miles from Christchurch, where it was found 
in situ, at a depth of four feet, by a party of workmen 
who were cutting a drain. The measurements are : — 
Femur 1 ft. 6 in. ; tibia 8 ft. 3 in. ; tarsus 1 ft. 8 in. ; 
outer toe 9f in. 
The corresponding right leg was exhumed a con- 
siderable time afterwards, when Mr. Fuller was con- 
ducting a search on behalf of the Canterbury Museum, 
and this specimen, with the phalanges complete, is now 
in my private collection. 
In November 1878, Mr. H. L. Squires of Queens- 
town, South Island, obtained and forwarded to the 
British Museum the head of a Moa with a continuous 
part of the neck, with the trachea enclosed and covered 
by the dried integument, and exhibiting even the scle- 
rotic bone-ring of the dried eyeballs ; also the bones of both legs with the feet covered by the 
dried skin, with some feathers adhering to it, and with the claws intact. 
It was this specimen that enabled Sir Richard Owen to characterize his Dinornis didinus, and 
we may imagine the delight with which the veteran scientist embraced this opportunity of examining, 
for the first time, a specimen in which the characters could be studied as in a living or recent bird, 
and the value of his deductions from the study of single bones thereby tested, as well as the satisfac- 
tion with which he found his general conclusions so amply verified. This bird was scarcely larger than 
Dinornis didiformis, but presented characters of sufficient importance to separate it specifically from 
that form. The result of a close comparison of this dried head with that of existing Struthious birds 
was that “ the Moa is found to repeat most closely, in the form and proportions of the beak, and in 
the shape, relative positions, and dimensions of the narial, orbital, and auditory apertures, the Emus 
