460 
CONCLUSION. 
Ly bringing to a close the record of the scrutiny and comparison of the evidences of the 
extinct winglless birds of New Zealand, some relaxation may be condoned by way of 
indulgence of the faculty of conjecture. 
The cause and conditions of the extinction of these birds, discussed in pp. 457-459, 
may be held to be determined, and, approximately, the date of their disappearance. 
But what can be said as to their origin? The first ground which suggests itself as a 
basis of speculation is, literally as well as figuratively, New Zealand itself, Since no 
evidence of such birds as those ranging in size from Notornis to the maximized form 
of Dinornis have been found in any other part of the globe, the conclusion seems 
levitimate that the species of those genera, as of Aptornis and Cnemiornis, did not exist 
elsewhere, at least on any known existing tract of dry land. 
The naturalist, on the discovery and exploration of New Zealand, recognized the rare 
circumstance that, save the Maori and his dog, no predatory land-animal existed in 
the islands which could have alarmed or endangered the existence of such birds as form 
the subject of the present work: nor has any evidence of such enemy been discovered 
in any stratum or locality of cither the North or South Island. It is, indeed, accepted 
as a notable fact in the geographical relations of living things, that, with the exception 
of some Bats and shore-haunting Seals, the mammalian class was unrepresented in New 
Zealand prior to the comparatively recent advent of the Polynesian people. The 
earliest maritime discoverer may have left the rat. Cook introduced the pig. Colonists 
have since spread abroad their domesticated mammals. There is no native terrestrial 
reptile in New Zealand, nor any evidence of an extinct one, which could have alarmed 
and stimulated an Aptornis or a Dinornis to the strenuous act of flight, if the ancestors 
ot these birds had ever possessed wings in full functional development. It is true that 
a raptorial bird of unusual size did coexist with the Moas (pp. 141-150); but the 
menacing approach of such an enemy would excite a tush into the bush, the cleft, or the 
cave, not a rise into the medium of which an eagle is master, A swift course on land, 
or sudden dash or diye in water, would better avail in escape than such inferior flight 
as a Coot, a Goose, or a Moa could have accomplished if they had possessed such 
Wings as one associates with our idea of a ‘normal’ bird. 
The fact of a range of variety in size has been determined in the individuals of many 
species. Such variety affecting a Cereopsis to the degree shown by Cneniornis would, 
in a corresponding degree, render the act of flight more difficult and laborious. Con- 
sequently if that act were not needed for the acquisition of food it might seldom or 
never be exercised in the absence of any enemy from which it would offer a way of 
escape. 
By long disuse of the wings, continued through successive generations, those organs 
would become enfeebled, and ultimately atrophied to a degree aflecting their capability 
to raise the body of the bird in the air. 
