iv 
the femur of the Ostrich, like that of the Rhea and Eagle, is “pneumatic,” or 
contains air, the present huge bird’s bone had been filled with marrow, like that of a 
beast. 
When its owner called the next day I told him, with much pleasure, the result of 
my comparisons, and assured him that I would recommend the purchase of the bone, 
at the price asked, to the ‘* Museum Committee.” 
I regret to relate that, notwithstanding my testimony, the purchase of the unpromising 
fragment was declined ; and it was not convenient to me, in 1839, to pay the sum out 
of my own pocket. I promised, however, to commend the specimen to other possible 
purchasers, one of whom I found, through my friend Mr. Broderip, F.R.S., in Benjamin 
Bright, Esq., then M.P. for Bristol}. ; 
Meanwhile the vendor permitted me to make the drawings which are lithographed 
in the Plate, p. 73; and these drawings, with my descriptions and conclusions, were 
‘submitted to the Zoological Society of London, November 12th, 18392. 
I was not surprised that there was some hesitation in the * Publication Committee ” 
as to the admission of the Paper with the Plate into the ‘ Transactions.’ ‘The bone was 
not fossilized; it might have come from a kind still existing. But a bird larger than 
an Ostrich, belonging to a “heavier and more sluggish species,” could hardly have 
escaped observation in so limited a tract of dry land as New Zealand. 
Moreover, after arriving at the conyiction 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 
Apterya ; and even its existence had begun to be doubted’, Accordingly the Earl of 
Derby, then President of the Zoological Society, who possessed 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 specimen to the Society, 
and confided it 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 neighbouring islands, as its “‘ habitat.” 
* For the acquisition, many years later, of this specimen by the British Museum, see p, 149. 
* Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, part vii, 1839, p. 169. Transactions of the Zoological 
Society, vol. iii. p. 29. 
* Temminck, in his ‘Analyse du Systéme Général d’Ornithologie,’ relegzates the Apteryerand Didus to a 
terminal group under the name of “ Jnertes 3’ and Lesson asks :—L'Apteryx de M, Temminck ne seroit-il pas 
fondé sur les piéces de Dronte [ Dodo] conseryées au Museum de Londres ?” (*‘ Manuel d’Ornithologie,’ vol. ii. 
pe 211.) ‘ 
* Vol. xxiy, “ Ferruginous-grey Aplerya,.” * Trans. Zool. Soc. vol, i, p- 71. 
