G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 253 



CATALOGUE OF THE BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 



A descriptive catalogue of the birds of New Zealand, by- 

 Mr. Hutton, the assistant geologist connected with the gov- 

 ernment museum at Wellington, has just been published. 

 This author enumerates one hundred and sixty species as in- 

 digenous to the island, and fifty-two introduced by the set- 

 tlers. Among the latter are the robin-redbreast, the night- 

 ingale, the song thrush, the rook, the jackdaw, starling, Amer- 

 ican meadow-lark, American red-winged blackbird, the Amer- 

 ican scarlet tanager, the bullfinch, the goldfinch, linnet, sky- 

 lark, and some other species. 



EGGS OF THE MOA. 



The Colonial Museum of Wellington, New Zealand, has 

 lately distributed casts of several specimens of eggs of the 

 moa belonging to its collection, sending a series to the Smith- 

 sonian Institution in Washington. These eggs are of great 

 interest from their enormous size, being inferior only to those 

 of the ^Epyornis of Madagascar. The largest of three eggs 

 was found in the Kaikoras Peninsula, between the legs of a 

 human skeleton w r hich had been buried in a sitting posture, 

 and which was supposed to be of great antiquity, not only 

 from the accompaniment of the egg, but also from the body 

 having been placed in a sitting position, a posture very unu- 

 sual among the Maoris. Letter. 



NEW FOSSIL BIRD. 



Professor Marsh reports to the American Journal of Sci- 

 ence the discovery, during his explorations in 1871, of a re- 

 markable fossil bird. It was found in the upper cretaceous 

 deposit of Western Kansas, and the remains consist of the 

 greater portion of the skeleton, at least five feet in height, 

 and which, although a true bird, as is shown by the vertebra3 

 and other parts of the skeleton, diners widely from any 

 known recent or extinct forms of that class, and affords a fine 

 example of a comprehensive type. The bones are all well 

 preserved. The femur is very short, but the other 'portions 

 of the legs are quite elongated. The metatarsal bones ap- 

 pear to have been separated. On his return the professor 

 proposes to describe this unique fossil under the name of 

 Hesperornis regalis. 4 Z>, January, 1872, 50. 



