660 
The bone as preserved is eight and a-quarter inches long, the broken proximal end of 
the shaft having a diameter of one and eleven-sixteenths inches, with a round oval 
section. A measurement taken across the precondylar groove, at that point which 
in Dinornis would be occupied bj the bony bridge, gives two and six-sixteenths 
inches. The anterior surface of the shaft at its proximal end is flattened to some 
extent, hut the posterior is much more convex. The inner lateral surface is also 
flattened, or may be described as straight-walled, and is margined anteally by an 
extension of the distal extremity of the procnemial ridge, which is prominent but 
obtuse. On the anterior surface, the most noticeable feature is the precondylar 
groove, which is traceable from within two and a-half inches of the broken proximal 
end of the shaft. The shallow proximal end. of this grove is quite contiguous to 
the inner lateral margin of the shaft, but, as it progresses towards the forepart of 
the hone, it takes up a median position, as described by Owen. The fossa, or deeper 
portion between the commencement of the condyles, is more transversely obliquely 
placed and more open than in the latter’s figure of the left tibia. Its foramen is very 
much larger than the corresponding pit in the right tibia of Dinornis crassm ; and at 
the same time there is a most marked difference bcttvecn the fore and aft thickness of 
this hone immediately above the position of the bony bri Ige and that in the first cited. 
In Dinornis crassus it is one and two-sixteenths inches, but in our Dromornis the 
measurement reaches one and six-.sixtoeiiths inches — /.e., a difference of a quarter of 
an inch. When tlie distal pulley-like articular surface is compared with that of 
Dinornis crassus, very marked differences are perceptible. The inner and upper ends 
of the condylar ridge on the anterior side approximate closely in Dinornis, but they 
do not do so in Dinornis crassus, the result being that the intercondylar space or 
channel is much narrower throughout the whole of its course in Dromornis than in 
Dinornis crassus. On the outer lateral surface, between the upper edges of the 
anterior and posterior condylar margins, there is an almost median depression; 
this also exists in Dinornis. On the contrary, in the Emu and in the Cassowary 
this is not present, but the surface of the bone is plain and flattened. The 
bone-substance is thick, measuring at the proximal fracture six-sixteenths of an inch, 
the central cavity being one inch in diameter, and somewhat less in a contrary 
direction. 
The hone which I refer to the fibula, is in the same state of preservation. It is 
the proximal end of the left bone, three and a-quarter ineliea long. The upper articular 
surface is worn and almost flat and broad ; in fact much broader than in the correspond- 
ing portion of the fibula of Dinornis eleiihantopus. The outer edge of the head is 
sharp, and the same side retires inwards, forming a strongly concave surface. The fore 
and aft measurement of the head is two and fourteen-sixteenths inches, the trans- 
verse or cross measurement being one and three-quarter inches. The inner side of the 
fibula in Dinornis elephant opus, between the two inner extremities of the head, is 
roughly triangularly concave ; in the Emu it is olongately concave, but in the present 
fossil the similar surface is limited, to some extent protuberant, and deeply and closely 
marked by pits for muscular attachment. 
The posterior prolongation of the head is very marked and long, projecting 
backwards as an obtuse elongate process, and when compared with the similar part of 
the fibula of D. elephant opus, is at once seen to be less thick and massive but more 
projecting. In the Ostrich there is a further diminution, and a still greater in the Emu. 
The diameter of the shaft of the fibula in the Dinornis elephantopus is one and four- 
sixteenths inches at a corresjionding point to that at which our bone is broken. The 
same measurement of the latter is only one inch, proving it to he a less powerful hone 
