FIFTY YEARS AGO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16214, 27 April 1916, Page 10

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

- SREMAINS OF HUGE BIRD. * ; DISCOVERY IN THE COLONY. (From tbc iJEBAU) of April 27, 1866.) Tut following letter from Professor Richard Owen appears in the London Times of February 22 .-—Sir,— Paragraphs like that on the 'Gigantic Bird' usually include elements which the naturalist sees to be fatal to the interpretation attached to the facts; yet these may be well deserving attention and inquiry. New Zealand was undoubtedly the land of huge birds, but, like their few existing congeners in other parts of the world, the head was small; that of a Dinornis, thrice the bulk of the largest living ostrich, does not exceed eight inches in length. The notice of the remains found ! in the Province of Nelson assures me that they are those of a saurian reptile, and indicate the Jurassic age of tho beds of limestone' in which they have been petrified. Parts of a Plesiosaurus were discovered in that province by Mr. J. H. Hood, of Clunyhouso, Dunkeld, in 1861, but the present arc of another kind. Should this letter appear and meet the eyes of any colonist able to grant the request, I "would ask only for a nglo vertebra— of back or tail—and one of the supposed feathers of the 'gigantic bird,' and promise to return the name of the animal."