269

239

part of one of some dorsal vertebrae belonging to the same backbone ; and the characters
of size led to the like conclusion in regard to part of the series of cervical vertebrae.

Some portions of ribs had been collected, corresponding in the size and relative
position of the capitular and tubercular joints with the answerable articular surfaces on
the dorsal vertebrae : the size of the costal articular surfaces on the margins of an
otherwise small and keel-less sternum similarly supported the inference that it belonged
to the same bird, and that this was one of those singularly numerous feathered species
of New Zealand that were without the power of flight.

Finally, there was a humerus which, from the feeble development of its proximal
processes, had evidently belonged to some such flightless bird. The size of this bone
was, indeed, disproportionately small compared with the tibia, according to the ordi-
nary avion skeleton, but it bore nearly the same proportion to the sternum as does the
humerus in Notornis, and rather a larger proportion to the leg-bones than in the Emeu.
I, therefore, have strong faith in the accuracy of the reference of all the bones from the
limestone fissure above enumerated to the same species, if not the same skeleton ; the
more so, as there were no other bones of other species sufficiently similar in size to the
leg-bones, pelvis, and vertebrae, to which the keel-less sternum and feeble humerus
could be supposed to belong.

The bird of the Middle Island of New Zealand, about the size of the Mooruk, and
now, perhaps extinct, will be shown, I believe, by the characters of so much of its
skeleton as has been obtained, to have been the type of a genus unknown to science ;
and for which I propose the name Cnermiornis 1, indicating the present species by the
term calcitrans, as being capable of kicking much more violently than the Apteryx,
after full allowance for difference of size.

Cervical Vertebrae.

Of the cervical vertebrae, some (Pl. LXVI. figs. 1 & 2) present a remarkable expanse
of the neural arch (n) , which may be 2 inches 6 lines across, the smallest transverse
diameter of the centrum (fig. 4, c) being but 5 lines. In such a vertebra the centrum
sends down a short, compressed hypapophysis (ib. h) from its hinder part. The length
of the centrum is 1 inch 9 lines ; it expands, being concave and smooth below, toward
the anterior articular surface (figs. 1 & 2, c'), and to each side of this expanded part the
pleuropophysis (figs. 1, 2 & 4, pl) is confluent, completing a vertebrarterial canal (ib. v),
almost as wide as the nerural one (n) ; the prezygapophyses (z) are wide apart, looking
upward and forward ; a horizontal plate of bone (figs. 3 & 4, iz) extends from each to
the postzygapophysis (fig. 4, z'), expanding and forming a slightly thickened, convex

1. *K...., tibia, opvis, avis: in composition, cnemi, in anticnemion,: :gastrocnemius," &c., signifiying the
genus of wingless birds remarkable for the size of the processes of the tibia. For the opportunity of describing
this series of bones I am indebted, as for the skull of Dinornis robustus from the same locality, to Dr. David
S. Price.
2 B 2