391 
RESTORATION 
OF 
DINORNIS MAXIMUS. 

‘THE indications in a former section (pp. 250-253) of an established form of Dinornis 
surpassing in size those to which the names Dinornis giganteus and Dinornis robustus 
had been applied have been strengthened by later discoveries, which equally justify 
the term maximus, and have contributed to the present restoration of that huge species 
or propagable variety. 
Osseous remains, agreeing in their dimensions or proportions with those figured in 
Plates LX XIX. and LXXX., have been disinterred, chiefly from that notable locality 
«Glenmark Swamp,” in the province of Canterbury, New Zealand; and the abundance 
of the evidences of this hugest of known birds (recent or extinct) afforded Dr. Haast 
the materials for a proposition of exchange, in effecting which I obtained a series of 
bones of the Dinornis maximus which permitted the articulation of the skeleton figured 
in Plate XCVIL., and now in the National Museum of Natural History. 
In the present summary of the osteology of the species I shall supplement the former 
Memoir by details of the vertebral structures. These I propose to combine with com- 
parisons of the homologous bones in the largest living wingless bird, Struthio camelus 
—to which end the admirable and usefully illustrated monograph by Professor Mivart, 
F.R.S., “ On the Axial Skeleton of the Ostrich’, lends peculiar facilities. 
In these comparisons I adopt most of the technical terms of aspect and position 
proposed by Prof. Mivart, in addition to my own, and I subjoin, for the convenience of 
students, their vernacular equivalents :— 
preaxial = fore, anterior ; 
postaxial = back, hind, posterior ; 
dorsal or neural == upper; 
ventral or hemal = lower, under ; 
neurad = upward ; 
hemad = downward ; 
1 Trans, Zool. Soc. vol. viii. p. 385. 




