217

187

Restoration of the Feet of Dinornis and Palapteryx.

In the previous memoirs of the present Work, the remains of the wingless birds of
New Zealand, consisting of the cranium and the bony beak 1, of the vertebrae and
pelvis 2, of the sternum 3, and the principal bones of the leg 4, have been determined,
described, and referred for the most part to different species of Dinornis and Palapteryx ;
the rest belonging to the genera Aptornis and Notornis, the species of which, though
they would be called large in comparison with the majority of the actual class of birds,
dwindle into insginificance by the side of their stupendous contemporaries.

There chiefly remained to complete our knowledge of the osteology of these appa-
rently extinct forms of the feathered class, the complete restoration of the feet : and
when the number of different bones which compose this part of the skeleton of the bird
is called to mind, the slight though definite modifications of form that distinguish them,
and the chances against the discovery of such comparatively small bones, it will not be
matter of surprise that the foot should hae been the last of the segments of the limbs
to be so reconstructed.

With each successive collection of the remains of the great terrestrial birds of New
Zealand, since the arrival, in 1843, of that first transmitted by the Very Rev William
Williams 5, more or fewer toe-bones have, nvertheless, been associated ; and, as their
numbers increased, their determination became facilitated. Already in the partial
restoration of the Dinornis giganteus in pl. 30 of my memoir in the 3rd Volume of the
Zoological Transactions, in 1843, I had ventured to sketch the probable proportions
and disposition of the phalanges in each of the three anterior toes, guided by the
analogy of the Apteryx, in building up that part on the basis of the few specimens of
phalanges that then suggested the probability of such analogy being correct.

Each successive acquisition of additional phalanges has tended to support by original
suppostition of the general resemblance of the foot of the Dinornis to that of the apteryx :
and the rich acquisition of remains from Waikawaite in the Middle Island, transmitted,
in 1849 by the late Col. Wakefield, has enabled me to recompose the entire skeleton of
the foot of three species of Dinornis and Palapteryx, the largest appertaining to that
great bird which I had indicated in my memoir in the 3rd volume of the Zoological
Transactions, in 1846, p. 327, as probably being 'a well-marked variety' of the Dinornis
giganteus.

No specimens precisely corresponding with the characteristic femur, tibia and meta-
tarse of the Dinornis giganteus have, as yet, been transmitted from the middl Island :
the homologous bones of similar size from Waikawaite present more robust proportions ;
and this difference is not only well-marked in the metatarse of the entire foot figured in
Plate XLXIX., but is accompanied by a well-marked articular rough depression for the

1. pp. 116,118. 2. pp. 91,97,121. 3. pp. 124, 190. pp. 78-90, 127-137
5. Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. iii, p. 237

3 G 2