MEMOTR | 
ON THE 
GENUS PALAPTERYX, 
WITH 
DESCRIPTIONS OF ADDITIONAL REMAINS AND SPECIES OF 
DINORNIS. 
THE publication of the Descriptions of the successively discovered remains of Dinornis, 
in the ‘ Proceedings’ and ‘ Transactions’ of the Zoological Society of London, during the 
years 1839 and 1843, was speedily followed by the collection in New Zealand, and the 
transmission to this country of many additional and highly interesting parts of the 
skeleton ; some referable to the species of Dinornis therein defined, some to species of 
which no remains have hitherto been described, and others indicative of the new genus 
of gigantic wingless Birds, for which | have proposed the name of Palapteryw. 
The specimens in question have been discovered not only in the ‘ North Island’ of 
New Zealand, from which those previously described were exciusively obtained, but 
also from the ‘ Middle Island,’ or as it is sometimes termed, the ‘ South Island’; and 
all the bones from this locality are less altered, and appear to be much more recent than 
those from the North Island. The friendly correspondents through whose kindness I 
am indebted for the rich additional materials which form the subject of the present 
memoir, or for information respecting the Dinornis, are Captain Sir Everard Home, Bart., 
R.N. ; the Hon. Wm. Martin, Chief Justice of New Zealand; Sir Wm. Hooker, F.R.S8. : 
the Ven. Archdeacon Williams, Corr, Z.S.; William Swainson, Esq., F.R.S., F.LS., 
the distinguished naturalist ; Colonel William Wakefield ; J. R. Gowen, Esq., a Director 
of the New Zealand Company ; Rev. William Cotton, M.A. ; Rey. Richard Taylor, M.A. ; 
the Rev. William Colenso*, M.A.; Dr. Mackellar; and Perey Earl, Esq. 
I propose first to describe the bones, the homologues of which have not before been 
described, and which extend our knowledge of the generic characters of the skeleton of 
the Dinornis, and afterwards those which characterise additional species. 
Amongst the specimens of parts of the skeleton not known when the foregoing memoirs 
were printed, are two mutilated crania, defective unfortunately in the mandibles, and 
showing little more than the walls of the cranial cavity ; but, nevertheless, highly inter- 
esting and instructive. The larger specimen (Plate XVI. figg. 1—4) was obtained by 
+ This gentleman has published a very instructive and interesting memoir on the Moa (Dinornis) in the 
Tasmanian Journal, No. VII. 1843, to which the editor has appended an abstract of my memoir in ‘ Zool, ‘Trans.’ 
yol. iii, p. 32, Mr. Colenso’s memoir is reprinted in the ‘ Annals of Natural History,’ August 1844. 
Q 
