REVIEW.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5581, 17 February 1879, Page 3

REVIEW.

The Extinct Wingless Birds of New . Zealand.* The veteran zoologist and comparative anatomist, Professor Owen, whose name is a household word in all English speaking countries, has made a most important addition to the literature of New Zealand. As most of our readers are aware, for thirty years past the learned professor has been working away at tho fossil birds of New Zealand, producing at irregular intervals elaborate memoirs giving the results of his researches, and beautifully illustrated with lithographed plates. The large collection of moa bones made by Mr. Walter Mantel! in tho early days of the colony was handed over to Professor Owen for elucidation before being deposited in the British Museum, and the marvellous restorations then made were fully described and delineated. Every important collection sent to Europe since has found its Avay into the same master hands for similar treatment. From their expensive nature, the publication of these papers had to be undertaken by the Zoological Society, and from the fact of their being scattered through the costly “ Transactions” of that august body, they are quite inaccessible to naturalists abrord. Professor Owen has collected and republished all these memoirs in two magnificent quarto volumes, the first containing 512 pages of text, and the other 130 plates, several of Avhich, from the size of their subjects, are in folio. With the text are iotercoiated woodcuts, and Dr. Hector’s geological map of New Zealand is annexed for tho purpose of showing the localities of the discovered fossils. The volumes comprise an introductory notice of the circumstances which led to the discovery and restoration of the extinct avifauna of New Zealand. The descriptions are accompanied by illustrations of the natural size of the fossils, and reduced views of the restored skeletons on which the several genera and species have been founded. The whole is preceded by an illustrated anatomy of the existing wingless bird (Apteryx Australia), which is the nearest ally of the extinct Dinornis ; and is followed by notices of the food, footprints, nests, and eggs of the moa, the Maori traditions relating to those gigantic birds, the causes and probable period of their extirpation, and a speculation on the conditions influencing the atrophy of the wings in flightless birds. Supplementary memoirs are appended on the dodo, solitaire, great ank, and also some evipences of gigantic extinct birds in Australia and Great Britain. Much recent matter has been added to the former papers, and the whole work in this complete form is issued at the extremely moderate price of six guineas. In the prospectus announcing the work, Professor Owen explains that his advanced age has led him to issue it entire in preference to a publication in parts, and adds that “ his purpose, long entertained, was strengthened by the appearance and favorable reception of an excellent and comprehensive work on the existing birds of New Zealand, by Dr. Butler, to Avhich the present volumes may be deemed complementary.” * Memoirs of the Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand. By Richard Owen, C.B„ F.R.S. Van Vooat, 1, PaternosteiEow.