The Maoris call this bird the Moa, and their legends and traditions are full of mention of it.

When they first came to the island, six or seven hundred years ago, they found these vast birds everywhere, and hunted them for food.
To my mind the dinornis is the opmahera of More.

As to riding on them, that is likely enough; for ostriches are used for this purpose, and the dinornis must have been far stronger and fleeter than the ostrich.
It is possible that some of these birds may still be living in the remoter parts of our hemisphere." "What about those monsters," asked Featherstone, "that More speaks of in the sacred hunt ?" "I think," said the doctor, "that I understand pretty well what they were, and can identify them all.

As the galley passed the estuary of that great river, you remember that he mentions seeing them on the shore.

One may have been the Ichthyosaurus.