THE GIGANTIC MOA-BIRD. 89 



was so exceedingly terrified, or perhaps both of them, that they were satisfied 

 with looking at the bird ; when after a little time it took the alarm and strode 

 off up the side of the mountain." 



In the Greymouth Weekly Argus, published in New Zealand in 

 18 70, there appeared a letter signed R. K. M. Smythe, Browning's 

 Pass, Otago, describing in a very detailed manner the capture of two 

 living moas, a female eight feet high, and a younger one three feet 

 shorter. The writer finishes his account of their capture by remark- 

 ing that he has little doubt that he will be able to bring them both 

 alive to Christchurch. It is therefore to be hoped that living repre- 

 sentatives of the genus Dinornis still survive. Feathers of the bird 

 have been also found in a state of preservation sufficiently good to 

 show that they possessed an after-shaft of a large size ; and at the 

 same time tradition and the condition in which the bones are found, 

 retaining much of their animal matter, tend to show how lately the 

 bird formed part of the existing fauna of the country. If the letter 

 be genuine, it cannot be long before ornithologists, of whom there are 

 several of no mean repute in New Zealand, will be able to satisfy 

 themselves on the subject. 



An additional reason for supposing that these magnificent birds 

 existed not long ago is found in the fact that specimens of their eggs 

 have been preserved. In the volcanic sand of New Zealand, Mr. 

 Walter Mantell found a gigantic egg, of the magnitude of which he 

 gives us a familiar idea by saying that his hat would have been just 

 large enough to have served as an egg-cup for it. This egg must have 

 been one of a dinornis or a palapteryx, and, although its dimensions 

 are considerably greater than the egg of the ostrich, still it is smaller 

 than might have been expected from a bird from twelve to fourteen 

 feet high. It is well known that the egg of the New Zealand apteryx, 

 to which the moa bears a very close affinity, is one of dimensions that 

 are quite surprising in proportion to the bulk of the bird. The apteryx 

 is about as big as a turkey, standing two feet in height ; but its egg- 

 measures four inches ten lines by three inches two lines in the re- 

 spective diameters. To bear the same ratio to the bird as this, the 

 egg of the Dinornis gigantea would be of the incredible length of 

 two feet and a half, by a breadth of one and three-quarters ! 



In the museum at York there is a complete skeleton of a moa, 

 which, besides feathers, has the integuments of the feet partly pre- 

 served ; from which it is evident that the toes were covered with 

 small hexagonal scales. A specimen has also been sent by Dr. Haast, 

 of New Zealand, to Prof. Milne-Edwards, which is to be seen in the 

 Museum of Natural History at Paris. Chambers's Journal. 



