MEMOIR 
ON 
BONES OF THE TRUNK AND LIMBS 
OF A 
GIGANTIC BIRD OF PREY 
(Harpagornis moorei, Von Haast). 
AT p- 108 a speculation is hazarded relative to a condition of extirpation of the now 
seemingly extinct gigantic wingless birds of New Zealand, which involves the assump- 
tion of their continued existence on the islands after the arrival there of mankind. In 
a subsequent ‘ section’ of the present work (pp. 220, 224) evidence will be submitted 
of birds, especially young individuals of certain large Moas, having been killed and 
eaten under circumstances pointing plainly to a Maori race as the cookers and feasters. 
The adyent of such destroyers in islands destitute of herbivorous beasts would first 
sound the knell of the departure of the huge feathered bipeds incapable of flight. 
For how long a period the Dinornithic generations may have roamed unmolested on 
the plains, hills, and woods of the tract of dry land gradually losing extent, and 
becoming reduced to the insular conditions and dimensions, such as when it first may 
have received its Polynesian immigrants, speculation fails to find a basis of estimate. 
But it might be asked, had the Moas no natural enemies before they became the 
exciting object of chase to the Maori men? 
Having in mind the relation of the existing birds of prey in New Zealand to the 
other contemporary members of the feathered class, of which the Apteryx australis 
now ranks as one of the giants, it sometimes entered into one’s speculations whether 
the great extinct Apterygians, of which evidence is given in the preceding Memoirs, 
might have been harried by any raptorial species of analogous or proportional size— 
whether at least the chicks or young brood of species of Dinornis might not have 
needed the protection of their giant parents against some such enemies. 
It was therefore with unusual interest that I received from a valued correspondent, 
Julius Von Haast, Ph.D., F.R.S., Director of the Canterbury Museum, New Zealand, 
and of the Geological Survey of that flourishing province, the following announcement 
of a discovery in the turbary deposits of Glenmark, a locality about forty miles from 
*U 
