A

PICTORIAL ATLAS

OF

FOSSIL REMAINS,

CONSISTING OF COLOURED

ILLUSTRATIONS

SELECTED FROM

PARKINSON'S "ORGANIC REMAINS OF A FORMER WORLD;"

AND

ARTIS'S "ANTEDILUVIAN PHYTOLOGY."

WITH DESCRIPTIONS

BY GIDEON ALGERNON MANTELL, ESQ. LL.D. F.K.S.

VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND, ETC.
AUTHOR OF "THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY," ETC. ETC.

"All things in nature are engaged in writing their own history. The planet and the pebble are attended by their shadows—the rolling rock leaves its farrows on the mountain side—the river its channel in the soil—the animal its bones in the stratum—the fern and the leaf inscribe their modest epitaphs on the coal—the falling drop sculptures its story on the sand, or on the stone—not a footstep on the snow or on the ground but traces in characters more or less enduring the record of its progress."—Emerson.

With Seventy-four plates,

CONTAINING NEARLY NINE HUNDRED FIGURES.

LONDON:
H. G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1850.

LONDON:

R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.

TO

THE VERY REVEREND

WILLIAM BUCKLAND, D.D. F.R.S.

Dean of Westminster,

&c. &c. &c.

THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED

AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE HIGH RESPECT AND AFFECTIONATE REGARD

OF ONE WHO HAS FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS

ENJOYED THE HONOUR AND PRIVILEGE OF HIS CORRESPONDENCE

AND FRIENDSHIP.

Chester Square, Pimlico,
    January 1850.

PREFACE.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPIECE.

The Frontispiece represents the entire series of bones composing the right foot of the Moa (Dinornis robustus), found imbedded in an erect position, with the corresponding foot a yard in advance, in a turbary deposit, at Waikouaiti, in the Middle Island of New Zealand, in 1849. The figures are one-third less in linear dimensions than the originals.

Figures 1^a, 2^a, 3^a, show the palmar, or under surface of the respective toes, and exhibit the trochlear or articulating extremities of the phalangeal bones.

The ancient swamp or morass in which these matchless specimens were imbedded, is situated on the shore, in a little creek or bay near Island Point, at the mouth of the river Waikouaiti, and is covered by the sea except at the lowest tides. Many remains of the largest species of Moa have from time to time been obtained from this deposit; the bones sent to England by Dr. Mackellar, Mr. Percy Earle, and others, figured and described in the Zoological Transactions by Professor Owen, were from this locality.

The specimens figured were obtained by Mr. Walter Mantell, in 1849, when visiting Waikouaiti, as Government Commissioner for the settlement of Native claims. On the recession of the tide, the upper (or proximal) ends of the metatarsals were just visible above the surface: these were carefully dug up, and all the bones of the respective toes numbered, one by one, as they were extracted from the soil. In this state they were sent to me, and have subsequently been articulated under my direction, in their natural order of arrangement.[1]

The condition and position of the bones, and the nature of the deposit,—evidently an ancient morass, in which the New Zealand flax (phormium tenax) once grew luxuriantly,—remind us of the very similar circumstances in which the extinct gigantic Elks in Ireland, and the Mastodons in America, have occasionally been found engulfed in peat bogs and morasses; and, as my son emphatically observes, it is impossible to arrive at any other conclusion than that the Moa to which these feet belonged, had sunk down in the swamp, and perished on the spot. Vertebræ and other parts of a skeleton of a bird of the same proportions, were dug up near the feet.

As the specimens under examination are the first examples in which the entire series of the phalangeal and ungueal bones have been found in natural connexion with the metatarsals, I subjoin the admeasurements of the several parts, to render the peculiar construction of the feet in one species of the lost race of the colossal birds of New Zealand, more obvious to those who may feel interested in the subject.

TARSO-METATARSAL BONES.

PHALANGEAL BONES.

The total length of the toes is as follows:—inner digit, 9½ inch.; middle, 11½ inch.; outer, 9¹/₃ inch. The transverse diameter of the expanse of the foot, from the distal extremity of the inner toe (fig. 1^a), to that of the outer one (fig. 3^a), is 15½ inches. The length from the posterior part of the trochlear extremity of the metatarsal to the distal end of the ungueal of the middle toe (fig. 2^a), is 13 inches. If to the actual dimensions of the bones be added the proportional thickness of the cartilaginous integuments, nails, &c., the length of the foot of the living bird may be estimated at about 16 inches, and the breadth at 17 or 18 inches.

From the great width and solidity of the metatarsals, and the form and corresponding size and strength of the phalangeals and ungueals, the ornithologist will perceive that the feet of the Moa must have constituted powerful instruments for scratching, digging, and uprooting the sub-terrestrial vegetable substances, which Professor Owen, with great probability, infers, formed the chief sustenance of the extinct colossal birds of New Zealand.

According to the relative proportions of the bones composing the hinder extremities of the gigantic species of Moa, the corresponding tibia, or leg-bone, of the feet above described, would be two feet nine inches in length, and the femur, or thigh bone, nine and a half inches; the total height of the bird was probably about ten feet.

Tibiæ, femora, and other bones of much larger proportions, (apparently of Dinornis giganteus and D. ingens,) were obtained from the same locality; some of these indicate birds of eleven or twelve feet in height; dimensions exceeding by one-third those of the largest known existing species of Struthionidæ—the Ostrich.[2]