205

MEMOIR

ON THE CRANIAL CHARACTERS OF

APTORNIS,

WITH

DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SKULL AND BEAK.

------------------------------------------------

Seldom has a new idea more rapidly reached its full development than that of the
former existence of gigantic terrestrial birds in New Zealand, suggested by the frag-
ment of bone from that island described and figured in the 'Transactions of the
Zoological Society' for 1839, vol iii.p.29. pl.3. Three years had scarcely elapsed
when other remains, transmitted from New Zealand, led to the determination of one
genus of these birds and to the indication of five species, one of the astonishing stature
of ten feet, by the characters of bones of the trunk and extremities *. In 1846+ a
second genus of large terrestrial bird, together with four additional species, and two at
least well-marked varieties, were established, principally by specimens of bones of the
extremities : different vertebrae, ribs, and a sternum, were at the same time contributed
towards the restoration of the entire skeleton of the extinct gigantic bird, and the
cranial portions of the skull of two distinct species were described, and compared with
that of the Dodo, so far as its characters could then be deduced from the dried head at
Oxford++.

No trace, however, of the beak of either of the genera indicated by the bones of the
extremities had then reached England : but in the 'Athenaeum' of September 25th, 1847,
Dr. Mantell, F.R.S., announced that his son, Mr. Walter Mantell, of Wellington, New
Zealand, "in an exploring tour in search of the remains of the colossal Ostrich-like

* Op. cit. vol. iii. p.235. pls. 18-30 (1843). + Tom. cit. P. 307. PLS. 38-50
++ The casts of the cranium of the Dodo, which the authorities of the Museum of Natural History of Copen-
hagen have liberally transmitted, and the exposition of the bones of the dried head at Oxford which the
Curator of the Ashmolean Museum has caused to be made, permitted the requisite comparisons to be carried
further in the Memoir read before the Zoological Society of London, January 11, 1848.