EECEEATIYE SCIENCE. 



41 



WINGLESS BIRDS. 



-i-tH' 



In days, not very remote, there existed seve- 

 ral races of wingless (or rather brevipennate) 

 terrestrial birds, spread over different, and, 

 indeed, wide apart portions of tbe globe. 

 Strange is it that, as far as we can ascertain, 

 none appear to have been natives of the 

 European continent, at least within what we 

 may term a recent period. The catalogue of 

 extant brevipennate birds is not very large, 

 and yet the species are less closely allied to 

 each other than might at first be suspected. 

 How far apart are the ostrich and the kiwi P 

 Yet both belong to the brevipennate type of 

 birds. Look first, then, to Africa and the 

 adjacent portions of Asia; there the ostrich 

 roams the desert, as it did in old historic daj^s. 

 Turn we to the great island of Madagascar ; 

 from this island, eggs of enormous size, evi- 

 dently those of a brevipennate bird, have 

 within the last few years been transmitted to 

 Europe, but whether the bird which laid them 

 be extinct or not, is a problem yet to be 

 solved. At the same time indefinite accounts 

 of one or more large wingless birds, natives 

 of Madagascar, have been transmitted to 

 the scientific bodies of Europe, and it may 

 be that we have yet to become acquainted 

 with some forms whose history wiU clear up 

 much which is a desideratum to the ornitho- 

 logist. 



It is a wide leap over to South America. 

 This great portion of the globe presents us 

 with two species of S/iea (commonly called 

 American ostrich), one of which has long 

 furnished feathers weU adapted for making 

 up into light dusting brushes. The second 

 species (Shea Dartvinii) was introduced to 

 science by Mr. Darwin, and is a native of 

 the plains of Patagonia. It is there called 

 Avestruz petise, while the ordinary species 

 is the Nandu of the Brazilians. 



Now for the great Indian islands ; they 



give us the cassowary, and another species 

 recently discovered, namely, the mooruk 

 (Casuarius Bennettii), of which a pair are 

 now living in the gardens of the Zoological 

 Society. 



Sail we thence to Australia ; there we find 

 the emeu{Dromaius Australis, Swainson),the 

 relict, most probably, of other brevipennate 

 birds. Let us next glance at the islands 

 now called Mauritius, Bourbon, and Eod- 

 rigues. Here existed, untU the middle of the 

 seventeenth, or beginning of the eighteenth 

 century, the dodo, the solitario, and, as we 

 have reason to believe, other brevipennate 

 birds, whose extinction, partly, no doubt, by 

 the agency of man, has been marvellously sud- 

 den. But, so it strikes us, man could not have 

 altogether accomplished this sudden and total 

 extirpation ; and are we not here reminded 

 of those cycles in the lapse of time wherein 

 races become effhfe, extinct, leaving vague 

 traditions of their former existence, with the 

 attestation of their semi-fossilized bones ? 



These observations lead us at once to 

 New Zealand. The fossilized, or rather semi- 

 fossilized, bones of apterygious birds of gi- 

 gantic size, prove that at no distant date- 

 nay, even since a wandering Malay popu- 

 lation made good their ground upon these 

 islands, tiU then probably untenanted by 

 man — many species of wingless birds, some 

 far larger and heavier-boned than the ostrich, 

 roamed over lull and glade, and trod down 

 the fern-brakes with heavy footstep. Have 

 they, these moas, been extirpated by man, or 

 have they fulfilled their allotted period ? No 

 indigenous quadrupeds tenant these islands. 

 Did the Malay race destroy them, and then, 

 for want of other food, take to the system of 

 cannibalism ? We cannot think so. Canni- 

 balism has long existed in other islands where 

 such horrible necessity could not have been 



