INTRODUCTION, 
xxi 
emur and the tarso-metatarsus of this bird present double the thickness in proportion to their length. 
this species Prof. Owen writes : — “ It must have been the strongest and most robust of Birds, and 
m ay be said to have represented the pachydermal type and proportions in the feathered class.” A 
hiid new species, following next, in order of size, to Dinornis didiformis, and strictly confined in its 
iange to the North Island, was named Dinornis curtus. 
Ihese more complete materials contained indubitable proof that Dinornis dromioides possessed, 
m common with D. ingens, the character of a distinct hind toe. Among the true forms of Dinornis 
this member was reduced (as in the Apteryx) to a high-placed hallux of diminutive size and func- 
tionless character, the attachment of this rudimentary toe being merely ligamentous. In most of 
the skeletons of Dinornis hitherto found there was no trace whatever of a hallux ; but Professor 
Owen has, with every show of probability, ascribed this absence to the extremely small size of these 
bones and the ease with which they 
could be overlooked or lost rather 
than to their non-development, al- 
though at an earlier date he was 
inclined to make it a character of 
generic importance. 
In 1850, Sir George Grey, who 
had been actively collecting Moa- 
bones in the district lying under 
Tongariro mountain, forwarded his 
collections to the British Museum ; 
and two years later, Professor von 
Hochstetter, the naturalist attached 
to the Expedition of the Imperial 
Austrian frigate ‘ Novara,’ who had 
undertaken a topographical exami- 
nation of the North Island, ob- 
tained a iich collection from the 
same locality. 
Most of these remains were 
found to belong to Palapteryx in- 
gens, of which the annexed imagi- 
oary sketch is given in Prof. 
Hochstetter’ s ‘ Neu-Seeland ’ (1863 
P- 438). 
Up to this period of our nar- 
iathe the remains discovered ap- 
peal to have belonged exclusively 
to birds of the Struthious Order; 
a ud, as Professor Owen had on 
juoie than one occasion explained, 
g Apteryx , notwithstanding the inferiority of size, modified structure of the palate, and 
