Art. I.—On the Classification and Mutual Relations of the Dinornithidæ.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 25, 1892, Unnumbered Page

Art. I.—On the Classification and Mutual Relations of the Dinornithidæ. By Professor T. Jeffery Parker, F.R.S. [Read before the Otago Institute, 10th May, 1892.] A Detailed study of the skull of the moas has led me to adopt views as to the classification and mutual relationships of these birds which do not agree with those expressed by Professsor Hutton in his recent admirable paper.* “The Moas of New Zealand,” Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxiv. (1891), p. 93. The full account of my observations will be published elsewhere, but a brief account of the conclusions at which I have arrived may be of interest. Hutton is probably right in assigning the broad-beaked skull usually assigned to the species crassus to elephantopus; in considering parvus as a variety of didiformis; and probably also in assigning the large, narrow-beaked skull, usually called elephantopus, to crassus. On the other hand, I consider didinus to be merely a small variety of casuarinus. Assuming these determinations to be correct, I admit the following genera:— 1. Dinornis, including the species giganteus, maximus, ingens, &c. 2. Emeus, including the species crassus. 3. Mesopteryx, including the species casuarina, and probably geranoides.

4. Anomalopteryx, including the species didiformis and curta. 5. Pachyornis, including the species gravis, ponderosus, and elephantopus. The retention of the genera Palapteryx and Cela does not appear to me to be warranted by the facts. Dinornis and Pachyornis have broad beaks; Emeus, Mesopteryx, and Anomalypteryx narrow, more or less pointed beaks; and as these differences are correlated with well-marked and definable characters in the cranium, maxillo-jugal arch, and mandible, they allow of the separation of the moas into three sub-families: one containing the tall, slender, flat-skulled, broad-beaked Dinornis; another the small or moderate-sized, narrow-beaked Emeus, Mesopteryx, and Anomalopteryx; and the third the squat, thick-limbed, broad-beaked Pachyornis. Expressed in a tabulated form the proposed classification is as follows:— Family—Dinornithidæ. Sub-family I. Gigantornithinœ. Genus 1. Dinornis, Owen. Species—giganteus, maximus, robustus, ingens, torosus, struthioides, &c. Sub-family II. Mesornithinœ. Genus 2. Emeus, Reichenbach. Species — crassus, an undetermined skull called provisionally species a. Genus 3. Mesopteryx, Hutton. Species—casuarina (including didina), three undetermined skulls called provisionally species a, b, and c. Genus 4. Anomalopteryx, Reichenbach. Species—didiformis (including parva),? curta (including oweni). Sub-family III. Pachyornithinœ. Genus 5. Pachyornis, Lydekker. Species—gravis, ponderosus, elephantopus, an undetermined skull called provisionally species a. As to the mutual relations of the various forms, Mesopteryx appears to be the most generalized genus, and to show most nearly the ancestral characters of the family. Emeus may be looked upon as a large and muscular development of the Mesopteryx stock. Anomalopteryx may be considered as having arisen from a common ancestor with Mesopteryx, but to have undergone specialisation in certain directions, the straight beak and immense temporal fovea being two very striking peculiarities. Pachyornis is probably to be derived from the Mesopteryx stock, but shows great specialisation in its broad beak

Postscript to Professor Parker's Paper on the Classification, &., of the Dinornithidæ. Since writing this paper I find that further researches have convinced Professor Hutton that he was not justified in definitely assigning a narrow-beaked skull to Emeus and a broad-beaked skull to Pachyornis. I have therefore come to the conclusion that, for the present at any rate, it will cause least confusion to follow Owen and Lydekker in this matter. Thus, in my forthcoming monograph to be published in the Transactions of the Zoological Society (see abstract in Proceedings Zool. Soc., 14th February, 1893), the large narrow-beaked skull called in the present paper Emeus crassus is named, as by Owen and Lydekker, Pachyornis elephantopus, and the broad-beaked skulls here assigned to Pachyornis are referred to Emeus. Thus the names Emeus and Pachyornis, as used in this paper, must be transposed. I have also found, from a conversation with Professor A. Newton, at Cambridge, that the names I assigned in the present paper to the sub-families are not in accordance with the rules of zoological nomenclature. The classification adopted in my large paper is therefore as follows:— Sub-family a. Dinornithinœ. Genus Dinornis. Sub-family b. Anomalopteryginœ. Genera Pachyornis, Mesopteryx, Anomalopteryx. Sub-family c. Emeinœ. Genus Emeus. April, 1893. Postscript to Professor Parker's Paper on the Presence of a Crest in some of the Moas. During my recent visit to England I have examined the moa-remains in all the principal museums, and have found feather-pits in two specimens of Dinornis robustus—viz., the magnificent individual skeleton from Tiger Hill, Manuherikia, in the Museum of the Philosophical Society, York, and a skeleton from Glenmark Swamp in the Tasmanian Museum, Hobart. The fact that some specimens both of robustus and of ingens (torosus) have the pits, while there is no trace of them in others, certainly points to the crest being a sexual character. April, 1893.

distinct maxillo-nasal bone, absence of an antrum or cavity in the maxillo-palatine, and by the strong, coarse character of the bones in general. Dinornis is in some respects even more specialised than Pachyornis, but in an opposite direction: as regards the skeleton generally, it runs to height rather than thickness, and its skull is remarkable for its great breadth and flatness, and for the long, broad, deflected beak. The following phylogenetic diagram gives the views at which I have arrived on this subject:—