158

136

No remnant of a Dinornis has yet been found in any of the contiguous islands, and I
have in vain searched for such in the recent collections of post-pliocene fossils from
Australia.

The extraordinary number of Wingless Birds, and the vast stature of some of the
species, peculiar to New Zealand, and which have finally become extinct in that small
tract of dry land, suggest it to be the remnant of a larger tract or continent over which
this singular Struthious Fauna formerly ranged. One might almost be disposed to
regard New Zealand as one end of a mighty wave of the unstable and ever-shifting crust
of the earth, of which the opposite end after having been long submerged, has again
risen with its accumulated deposits in North America, showing us in the Connecticut
sandstones of the Permian period the foot-prints of the gigantic birds which trod its
surface before it sank ; and to surmise that the intermediate body of the land-wave,
along which the Dinornis may have travelled to New Zealand, has progressively subsided,
and now lies beneath the Pacific Ocean.

the size of a turkey, and from its habits, nature and other circumstances seems so closely to resemble the Dodo,
as to lead me to suppose it is the same ; and lastly, a bird found in the southern parts of the Middle Island,
answering to the Emeu, although perhaps not so high. The gigantic Moa, whose bones are fully as large,
though not so ponderous, as those of the Elephant, is extinct, although everywhere traditions of its existence
are to be met with, coupled with that of an equally enormous Land-Lizard : this large bird, though perhaps
twelve or fifiteen feet high, was not tall in proportion to its size. Although the articulations of the bones are
many sizes larger than those of the Emeu, I have not yet met with a tibia longer than that of the Emeu of New
South Wales."

Capt. Sir. Everard Home adds, "I feel little doubt that the Dinornis exists in the Middle Island of New
Zealand, which is very thinly inhabited and almost quite unknown ; perhaps also in Stewart's Island, where it
is said that the Cassowary (Moa?) is to be found."
"H.M.S. North Star, Sydney, April 13th, 1844."