the scientific name given byProfessor Owen to the genus of huge struthious birds of thepost-Pliocene period, in New Zealand, which survive in thetraditions of the Maoris under the name of Moa (q.v.).From the Greek deinos, terrible, and 'ornis,bird.
1888. W. L. Buller, `Birds of New Zealand,' vol. i. Intro.p. xviii:
«The specimens [fossil-bones] transmitted . . . were confidedto the learned Professor [Owen] for determination; and thesematerials, scanty as they were, enabled him to define thegeneric characters of Dinornis, as afforded by the bonesof the hind extremity.»
Ibid. p. xxiv:
«Professor Owen had well-nigh exhausted the vocabulary of termsexpressive of largeness by naming his successive discoveries ingens, giganteus, crassus, robustus, and elephantopus, when he had to employ the superlative Dinornis maximus to distinguish a species far exceedingin stature even the stately Dinornis giganteus. In thiscolossal bird . . . some of the cervical vertebrae almost equalin size the neck-bones of a horse! The skeleton in the BritishMuseum . . . measures 11 feet in height, and . . . some of thesefeathered giants attained to a still greater stature.»