jEPWRNITHES. 47 



spears were thrown at them, and the scrub on the sides of the track would catch the 

 spears and break the jagged end off, leaving it in the bird. As it had to pass many 

 men, the broken spear-points caused it to yield in power when it had gained the open 

 ^ern-country, where it was attacked in its feeble condition by the most daring of the 

 tribe." The killed bird was cut up with a knife of obsidian, made for that exclusive 

 use, and which only served a single time. "What wild, weird scenes," exclaims 

 Russell, "those deep valleys of the southern Alps must have witnessed, when, after 

 the successful hunt, the natives gathered about their camp-fires, that lit up their dark 

 tattooed faces, and shone on the strange vegetation around, to feast on the flesh of moa, 

 or partake of its huge eggs, roasted on the hot stones of the oven ! " 



It will be perceived from many of the facts related above that the extermination 

 of the giant-birds of New Zealand cannot have taken place at a very distant period. 

 Dr. Haast, on the contrary, has taken the position that the moas were extinct before 

 the immigration of the Maori race, which now inhabits the islands, occurred, and that 

 these huge birds had been exterminated by an aboriginal people which he calls the 

 "moa-hunters." This theory has been successfully opposed by Mantell, Dr. Hector, 

 Hochstetter, and especially by Mr. A. de Quatrefages, from whose interesting memoir 

 (1883) much of the above has been borrowed. We may perhaps not be prepared to 

 accept as fully trustworthy the testimony of Haumataugi, the old Maori, who in 1844 

 related that during his childhood he had seen living moas, a statement which would 

 bring the year of extinction down to about 1770 or 1780 ; still we cannot doubt that 

 the extinction took place at a comparatively recent date, as it is otherwise impossible 

 to account for the discovery of remains of soft tissue in such a condition that the 

 muscles co\ild still be dissected ; especially if we remember that the climate of New 

 Zealand is mild and moist, conditions favorable to a speedy dissolution of the car- 

 casses. We may finally record the view of a man who, more than anybody else, has 

 a right to be heard in this question, viz., Professor Richard Owen. As late as 1882 he 

 expresses the opinion that " in the remote, well-wooded, and sparsely populated dis- 

 tricts of the southern division of New Zealand, a recovery of a still-existing specimen 

 of moa might be less unlikely than that of the JVbtornis, also originally i-ecognized by 

 fossil remains." 



ORDER IL--^EPIORNITHES. 



Eleven years after the discovery of Dinornis had been announced by Owen in 

 England, some few remains of a not less gigantic bird from Madagascar reached the 

 museum at Paris, and two days after, on the 27th of January, 1851, Isidore Geoffrey- 

 Saint-Hilaire read before the Parisian Academy of Sciences a paper, in which he 

 described two enormous eggs and part of the metatarsus of a bird which he called 

 jEpiornis maximns, meaning "the bird big as a mountain." 



This brought again to mind the old story of the famous Venetian traveler, Marco 

 Polo, who located the rue or roc, the giant bird of the Arabian tales, upon Madagas- 

 car, and related that the Great Khan of the Tartars, having heard of the bird, sent 

 messengers to Madagascar, who brought back a feather nine spans long, and two palms 

 in circumference, at which His Majesty expressed his unfeigned delight. This, like so 

 many others of his strange tales, had been regarded as a fable, but now there were 

 enough of believers who were satisfied that the egg of the rue had been found ; for 

 the eggs exhibited measured nearly 84 inches in circumference, and would hold 

 more than two gallons : in other words, had a capacity of nearly 150 hen's eggs, 



