457 
and excited much interest. I may add, that upon comparing the head of the bird 
with the fossil cranium and mandibles, and the figures and descriptions in the 
‘Zoological 'Transactions’', my son was at once conyinced of their identity; and so 
delighted was he by the discovery of a liying example of one of the supposed extinct 
contemporaries of the Moas, that he immediately wrote to me, and mentioned that the 
skull and beaks were alike in the recent and fossil specimens, and that the abbreviated 
and feeble development of the wings, both in their bones and plumage, were in perfect 
accordance with the indications afforded by the fossil humerus and sternum found by 
him at Waingongoro, and now in the British Museum, as pointed out by Professor 
Owen in the memoir above referred to,” 
This unique specimen was submitted to the eminent ornithologist, Joun Gou.p, 
Esq., F.R.S., for description and definition in his great work devoted to the recent 
avifauna of Australia. From that work I extract the following description of the 
living Notornis by my esteemed friend and fellow-labourer * ;— 
“The amount of interest which attaches to the present remarkable bird is perhaps 
greater than that which appertains to any other with which I am acquainted, inasmuch 
as itis one of the few remaining species of those singular forms which inhabited that 
supposed remnant of a former continent—New Zealand, and which haye been so ably 
and learnedly described, from their semifossilized remains, by Professor Owen, who, as 
well as the scientific world in general, cannot fail to be highly gratified by the discovery 
of a recent example of a form previously known to us solely from a few osteogical 
fragments, and which, but for this fortunate discovery, would in all probability, like 
the Dodo, have shortly become all but traditional, While we congratulate ourselves 
upon the preservation of the skin, we must all deeply regret the loss of the bones, any 
one of which would have been in the highest degree valuable for the sake of com- 
parison with the scanty remains which have been sent home from New Zealand. 
* Upon a cursory view of this bird it might be mistaken for a gigantic kind of 
Porphyrio ; but on examination of its structure it will be found to be generically distinct. 
It. is allied to Porphyrio in the form of its bill and in its general colouring, and to 
Tribonyx in the structure of its feet, while in the feebleness of its wings and the 
structure of its tail it differs from both. 
“ rom personal observation of the habits of Zridonya and Porphyrio, 1 may venture 
to affirm that the habits and economy of the present bird more closely resemble those 
of the former than those of the latter; that it is doubtless of a recluse and extremely 
shy disposition ; that being deprived, by the feeble structure of its wing, of the power of 
flight, it is compelled to depend upon its swiftness of foot for the means of evading its 
' Vol, iii, p. 877, pl. Ivi. figs. 7-13 (1848), and p. 173, Pl. XLVLIL of the present work. 
2 Lhave to express my obligations to Mr. Gould for permission to take, from the plate illustrative of his 
description, the requisite number of impressions for the copies of my present work. 
3 Y 
