The missionary and naturalist William Colenso published these drawings with an article entitled ‘An account of some enormous fossil bones, of an unknown species of the class aves, lately discovered in New Zealand’ in the Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science in 1846. The bones were presented to him by Māori at Waiapu on the East Coast. Colenso was one of many gentlemen scientists in New Zealand at the time – amateurs with an interest in a natural world very different from that of Europe.
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Reference: William Colenso, ‘An account of some enormous fossil bones, of an unknown species of the class Aves.’ The Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science 2, no. 7 (1846): 91 facing (S-L 674-91)
by William Colenso
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.