214 FIRST LESSONS IN ZOOLOGY. 



only a single large egg, which weighs one quarter as much 

 as the bird itself, in a hole in the ground. It is a night 

 bird, hiding by day under trees. 



The giant, ostrich-like, extinct birds of New Zealand, 

 called moa, and represented by several species 

 (Fig. 220), were supposed to have been con- 

 temporaries of the Maoris, or natives of New 

 Zealand. While a fourth toe is present in 

 the Apteryx, the moa-bird has only three 

 toes. 



The largest of the moas, Dinornisyiganteus, 

 stood nearly three metres (9^ feet) in height, 

 mentanr wing the tibia or shin-bone alone measuring nearly 



a metre (2 feet 10 inches) in length. 

 Allied to the moa was a still larger, but not higher, 

 bird, the JEpyornis maximus of Madagascar, supposed by 

 some to be the roc of the Arabian Nights' Tales. Of this 

 elephantine bird, its legs being remarkably thick and 

 clumsy, remains of the skull, some vertebrae, and a tibia 

 64 cent, long, have been found. The single egg discovered 

 is of the capacity of one hundred and fifty hen's eggs. 



Here also belong the three-toed cassowaries of the East 

 Indies, and the emeu of Australia ; both of these birds are 

 about 2 metres (5-7 feet) high. The South American 

 ostrich (Rhea Americana., Fig. 222), with three toes to 

 each foot, is a smaller bird, standing 1.3 metres high, run- 

 ning in small herds on the pampas. The two-toed ostrich 

 (Sirutho camelus), of the deserts of Africa and Arabia, 

 now reared for the feathers of its wings and tail, so valua- 

 ble as articles of commerce, is the largest bird now living, 

 being 2-2.7 metres (6-8 feet) high. It can outrun a horse, 

 and lives in flocks. It lays about thirty large white eggs 

 in a nest in the sand ; they are covered in the daytime by 

 the hen or left exposed to the sun, while at night the male 

 sits over and guards them. In Cape Colony ostrich-culture 

 has become an important business; in 1865 there were only 

 eighty individuals on the ostrich farms; in 1875 there were 



