106 
Note on the Moa Bones 
NOTE. 
A letter from Professor Buckland to Sir John 
Franklin, dated 25th February, 1843, alluding to this 
marvellous discovery of New Zealand Strutlionidae, 
exceeding in stature the largest ostriches of Africa, says, 
that he had just received from the "Rev. Mr. Williams, 
who for eighteen years has been a Missionary at Poverty 
Bay in New Zealand, a box full of the bones of this gigantic 
bird. Mr. Williams’s letter records a story of the captain 
and crew of an American vessel having seen a bird six¬ 
teen feet high, striding one night along a hill adjacent to 
the sea, but not having heart or curiosity sufficient to 
give chase to it. The state of the bones sent by Mr. 
Williams was so fresh as to indicate their having been 
a very short time in the mud from which they were 
extracted; and there are strong hopes that the living 
bird may yet be seen striding among the emus and os¬ 
triches in Regent’s Park. 
The box in question was opened by Professor Owen, 
who gives a list of 23 bones, sufficient to demonstrate 
that these fine remains belong to the same species 
of bird as the fragments formerly described. ( Zool . 
Trans., vol. iii,, p. 32, pi. 3.) It is distinct from 
the ostrich by the three toes; from the other tridactyle 
Struthonida by the absence of air in the femur , and the 
shortness of the metatarsal bones compared with the 
tibia: in these characters the great bird manifests an 
important affinity to Apteryx. Apteryx is, in fact, its 
closest existing relation, but is generally distinct by virtue 
of its fourth toe. Therefore the great bird of New Zealand 
will stand as representative of— 
Deinomis Novae Zelandiae, Owen, 
of future ornithological catalogues. 
It is quite big enough to have made footsteps as large 
