127 
whence the ossification radiates, and converging to the middle line, there produces con- 
fluence of the primitively separate halves. We cannot doubt, from the close conformity 
of the sternum of the adult Dinornis with that of the Apteryx, that it was developed in 
the same way, and not, as in the Gallinacea, from more numerous separate centres, 
notwithstanding the rasorial proportions of the metatarsus. 
Bones of the Extremities. 
Although the title of a former Memoir* referred to five species of Dinornis, deter- 
mined from the osseous remains transmitted by Archdeacon Williams from the North 
Island of New Zealand, a sixth species was indicated in the Memoir itself, under the 
name of Dinornis dromioides, by the characters of a femurt, the only bone of the 
extremities referable to that species which I at that time possessed. 
[ have since received from the North Island, by the kindness of Mr. Cotton, two other 
femora, agreeing in size and characters with the one.referred to the Dinornis dromioides, 
together with two tibiz and a metatarsal bone, of a size in respect of breadth of extre- 
mities and circumference of shaft suited to those femora, and differing from the homo- 
logous bones in all other known species of Dinornis by being more slender in proportion 
to their length and longer in relation to the femur ; thereby approaching more nearly to 
the proportions of the leg-bones in the Emeu and other large existing Struthonide, and 
confirming my conjecture founded upon the characteristic proportions of the femur 
itself f. 
The species which I have called Dinornis ingens was founded principally on the cha- 
racters of a femur and tibia, 1 have since received a tarso-metatarsal bone from the 
North Island, through the kindness of Mr. Colenso, and from the Middle Island there 
have been transmitted femora, tibize and tarso-metatarsals of apparently a more robust 
variety of Dinornis ingens, together establishing most satisfactorily the former existence 
of at least one species of Dinornis of the stature of nine feet. 
The richest accessions to the osteology of this extraordinary genus of wingless birds 
have been made by Mr, Percy Earl, an enterprising naturalist, to whose exertions 
zoology is indebted for the recovery of the most perfect remains from the soil of Now 
Zealand. These were discovered by Mr. Earl in a turbary deposit on the sea-coast of 
the Middle Island, near the settlement of Waikawaite. The deposit is overflowed by 
the sea at high-tides, and had been covered by a bed of sand and shingle but this bed 
having been swept away by storm-waves a short time before Mr. Earl's arrival, the black 
* Zoological Transactions, vol. iii, part 3, 1844, p. 235. 2 | ’ 
+ “The femur of nine inches in length, with similar proportions of ol nie and iastatarsue, eae latter 
would probably be relatively longer” —(the comparison is with Dinornis Pyare gives Eee ie 
feet to the species, which from its similarity of size to the Emeu I have called Dinornis dromioides,”—Jb. p. 264, 
pl. 22. + Ib. p- 252, 
