148 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. V. 
come from a kind still existing. But a bird larger < 
than an ostrich, belonging to a “ heavier and more 
, v sluggish species,” could hardly have escaped ob- k 
servation in a tract of dry land such as New Zea- 1 
land. Moreover, after arriving at the conviction • 
■"x/' that the “bone” was part of a huge terrestrial ' 
, ^ bird, I still felt some uncertainty as to the alleged . 
'' habitat. At that date, the largest known land- | 
, bird of the islands of New Zealand was the , 
apteryx, and even its existence had begun to be 
doubted. Accordingly, the Earl of Derby, then 
President of the Zoological Society, who pos- 
sessed the unique skin, which had been brought 
by Captain Barclay from New Zealand in 1812, 
and had been figured by Dr. Shaw in his 
“ Naturalist’s Miscellany,” transmitted the speci- 
men to the Society, and confided it in 1833 * 
for re-examination and description to William 
Yarrell. 
‘ Now this bird was barely the size of a 
pheasant, and “ the bone ” indicated a bird as big 
as an ostrich. 
‘ But the ostrich has the continent of Africa for 
its home, the rhea roams over South America, the 
emu over Australia, casuarius has not only New 
Guinea, but North Australia, and some neigh- 
bouring islands, as its habitat. 
‘ The misgivings of Vigors and .some other 
of my zoological contemporaries were as to the ^ 
possibility of a terrestrial bird, of the size I sup- | 
