96 Transactions. — Zoology. 



1874. Interesting discoveries have been made lately in eaves 

 in the Nelson District, as well as at Castle Eock, in Southland ; 

 and only last mouth another large deposit was found near 

 Oaraaru, and collected from by Mr. H. 0. Forbes.''' 



Fragments of egg-shell have been found in abundance at 

 Whangarei and Wanganui,t as well as in Canterbury and 

 Otago. The Hon. W. Mautell restored, more or less perfectly, 

 about a dozen eggs from Awamoa ; I and several have been 

 found in the interior of Otago. A nearly perfect one was 

 found in 1867 at Cromwell, which contained the bones of the 

 embryo chick. § It measured 9in. by 6in., and was found in 

 sand about 2ft. below the surface. Another, still more 

 perfect, was found at the end of 1859, or the beginning of 

 1860, at Kaikoura, with a Maori skeleton. It measured lOin. 

 by 7fin., and was sold in London for £120. || The specimens 

 of shell are almost always white or stained brown with earth ; 

 but two fragments of a pale-green colour have been found, one 

 at Queenstown, the other in sand on the banks of the Kawarau 

 Eiver.^f We may therefore conclude that the egg was pro- 

 bably white in some species, but pale-green, like that of the 

 cassowary, in others. The egg-shell consists of two calcareous 

 layers : the outer layer is the thicker, and is laminated ; the 

 inner layer has a columnar structure, each column sometimes 

 containing triangular prisms, '■''•■ but the structure differs much 

 in different eggs. The canals through the shell are oval and 

 simple. 



Little heaps of stones — moa-stones — from the gizzards of 

 the birds have been often found. These stones vary in size 

 from quite small up to 2oz. in weight, w^hile a complete set 

 weighs from 8oz. up to 51b. if Sir J. von Haast noticed that 

 these stones had always been picked up by the birds in the 

 immediate neighbourhood, 1 1 showing that they did not travel 

 fast. 



Feathers have been found in the alluvial sands of the 

 Clutha Eiver, between Alexandra and Eoxburgh, 18ft. below 

 the surface ; and also in caves near Queenstown. Most of 

 them have tvi^o shafts to each quill, but some have only one 



* For a list of localities at which moa-bones have been found see Geol. 

 Mag., series 3, vol. i.,p. 129 (1884). 



t " Petrifactions and their Teachings," G. A. Mantell, p. 121. 



J See Owen's Ext. Birds of N.Z., pi. cxv., as crassus, 



§ Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 110. 



il " Zoologist," 1866, p. 34; Trans, N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 408 ; Ext. 

 Birds of N.Z., pi. cxvii. 



'1 Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. viii., pp. 98 and 101 ; and vol. xviii., p. 83. 



** Nathusius, Zeit. Wissensch. Zool., xx., p. 118 ; and Hutton, Trans. 

 N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 166. 



tt-Ext. Birds of N.Z., pi. xcii. ; Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xvii., p. 174. 



+ 1 L.c, vol. iv., p. 73. 



