102 
the tarso-metatarsal belonging to the largest tibia fortunately prevented this error of 
exaggeration. 
But since the Cassowary and Apteryx, as compared with the Ostrich and Emeu, 
combine shorter tarso-metatarsals with their shorter necks, the Dinornis is much more 
likely to have resembled these birds than the Ostrich in the proportionate length of its 
neck, and we know that it resembled the Apteryx much more than the Ostrich in the 
robust proportions of the cervical vertebre. In the Apteryx, however, the peculiar 
length of the bill compensates for the relative shortness of the neck ; and until we have 
proof to the contrary, we must suppose the Dinornis to have had a bill of the ordinary 
proportions which it presents in the large existing Struthionide. I, therefore, conceive 
the Cassowary to offer the best term of comparison by which to calculate the height of 
the Dinornis. In the skeleton of a full-grown Cassowary! the tarso-metatarsal bone 
measures eleven inches in length: allowing an inch for the callous integuments beneath 
its distal articulation, the tibia and femur, articulated at the angles natural in the 
standing posture, rise to the height of two feet nine inches, From the level of the top 
of the trochanter to the top of the cranial crest is two feet three inches, and to the base 
of the crest two feet. We have no evidence that the Dinornis had that peculiar de- 
fence upon the head, and therefore, from the ground to the summit of the trochanter of 
the Dinornis giganteus being five feet six inches*, from this level to the top of the head, 
according to the proportion of the uncrested Cassowary, would be four feet, making 
the total altitude nine feet six inches. Thus, if we take the average of the altitudes of 
the Dinornis giganteus, as given by the analogies of the existing Struthionide, we are 
compelled to restrict our ideas of its height in the ordinary upright posture to ten feet. 
The Dinornis struthoides’, with a femur of eleven inches, a tibia of twenty-two inches, 
and a tarso-metatarsus of twelve inches in length, must have stood, according to the 
analogies of the Cassowary, six feet nine inches in height; according to those of the 
Ostrich, seven feet four inches : we may therefore regard its height to have not exceeded 
seven feet, or to have been about equal to that of a moderate-sized Ostrich, but of a 
more robust and stronger build, The fragment of the femur first described by me in 
1839 belongs to this species. 
The Dinornis didiformis, with a tibia as long as that of the Cassowary, viz. sixteen 
inches, but with a femur of eight inches and a tarso-metatarsus of only seven inches in 
length*, would, by the analogy of the Cassowary, be a little under four feet in height, or 
of intermediate size between the Cassowary and the Dodo, 
The femur of nine inches in length, with similar proportions of the tibia and meta- 
tarsus, which latter would probably be relatively longer, gives the height of five feet 
to the species which, from its similarity in size to the Emeu, I have called Dinornis 
| Pl. XXX, fig. 2. 2 Ib. fig, 5. 9 Tb. fig. 3. 
* Ib. fig. 1. The tarso-metatarsal bone of the Dinornis didiformis in Mr. Cotton's collection measures seven 
inches ten lines in length (Pl. XX a. fig. 2.) ; it is in other respects identical in character with the analogous 
bones described in the text, and indicates a sexual superiority of size. 
