388 
RESTORATION 
OF 
DINORNIS ROBUSTUS. 

OF the species Dinornis robustus, the numerous evidences accumulated in the 
Museums of Wellington, of Christchurch, and of Otago have confirmed the conclusion 
from the first received remains (ante pp. 127, 151, 187). The chief materials of the 
restored skeleton figured in Plate XCVI. were obtained by Edmund Gibson, Esq., of 
Oawaru, Dunedin, South Island of New Zealand, from some ‘ gold-prospectors,’ by 
whom it was discovered. They came upon the bones “ imbedded in a drift of almost 
impalpable sand overlying the ‘ older gold-drift’ in the Manuherikia valley” (ante, 
p. 156). The parts of the bones where the overlying sand was not of sufficient depth 
to protect them from atmospheric influences were bleached and weather-worn ; but the 
more deeply imbedded bones and parts of bones seemed “ as fresh as if the bird had 
only been killed a few months; on several of them cartilages and ligaments were 
remaining, while on the sacrum there was a large piece of skin set with feathers. ‘The 
skeleton was accompanied by several bones of the young bird, and by fragments of the 
shell of the egg, thus indicating that the parent bird was brooding over its young 
when overwhelmed by the sand-drift”’ !. 
Of the skeleton of this bird, the sex of which, considering the share of incubation 
which the male takes in some large existing Struthionid@, cannot be confidently 
inferred, the cranium (Pls. LXIV. and LXYV.), scapulo-coracoid arch (Plate LXIYV. 
figs. 2, 3, 4), integument of the foot (Plate LX-XI.), and remains of the feathers (Plate 
CXIV. figs. 7-9) are described in other sections of this work (pp. 248, 262). 
By means of additional materials I estimate the number of the cervical vertebre, 
five or six of which are wanting at the beginning of the series in the York specimen, to 
be fifteen. Their characters and modifications closely accord with those detailed in the 
description of that part of the skeleton of Dinornis maximus. 
The dorsal vertebrae are seven in number, of which the ribs of the second and third 
' Notes accompanying the bones which were transmitted by Mr. Gibson to his brother, Dr. Gibson, of York, 
by whom they were presented to the Museum of the Philosophical Society of that city. 
