Vi 
' * 
paper communicated to the Zoological Society, November 28th, 1843, and of the first 
“ Memoir on the Genus Dinornis” in the present work. o. 
». To this Memoir is prefixed one ‘*On the Anatomy of the Apteryx,” which, notwith- 
standing the inferiority of size, modified structure of the palate, and different propor- 
tions of the beak (compare Pl. VII. fig. 2, with Pl. CXIV. fig. 1), is the living bird which 
is the nearest of kin to the extinct Moas. 
As expressions in the present collection of ** Memoirs” occasionally occur on ornitho- 
logical problems which have since been solved, notes of the dates of such papers may 
here be given. fagA get 7tal- . | 
Page 1, containing the remark on the Dodo, was printed in 1838; p. 41, on the skin- 
muscles of Birds, in 1842. In the “ Memoir on the Genus Dinornis” of 1843, p. 73, 
reference is made to the initial paper of 1839. Since that date materials for the 
present volume have reached me year by year, and have received such notice as I 
~ deemed might stimulate to further research. 
That the bird I had pictured in imagination, and afterwards, on acquiring sufficient 
evidence of specific characters, called Dinornis struthioides, was not the sole represen- 
tative of its genus, and was far from being the largest, were facts for which I was not 
prepared, It has been some satisfaction to me to find that eminent ornithologists have 
recently added one or two species to the Rhea americana; and one may well imagine 
that the more numerous and diversified kinds of Dinornis exhibited as well-marked 
superficial characters as are shown by the six admitted living species of Casuarius, the 
osteological distinctions of which are less marked than those on which I have founded 
fifteen species of Dinornis. 
I here repeat my hearty thanks to the contributors of the subjects of the several 
Memoirs in which those species are characterized, and acknowledge my deep obligations 
to the Zoological Society of London for the favourable medium of making known suc- 
cessive discoveries of the extinct Birds of New Zealand in their ‘Proceedings’ and 
‘Transactions,’ and for the liberal permission to avail myself of the plates given in those 
publications for the purpose of the present work. 
With pleasure, also, I embrace this opportunity of expressing my sense of the value 
of the co-operation of my friend Mr. Jamzs ERXLEBEN, the accomplished Artist to whom 
this work owes the chief part of its Illustrations. 
