42 NEORNITHES RATITAE CHAP. 
its surface, some in marshes and superficial deposits generally, 
and others in caves, hollows of rocks, or cooking places of the 
former inhabitants. Footprints have been observed in the sand- 
stone; portions of muscles, ligaments, and even of skin have been 
discovered ; and, most remarkable of all, feathers have been met 
with of fresh appearance and unfaded colours. Pebbles used to aid 
digestion, and eggs, both whole and fragmentary, complete the list. 
Moas had comparatively small heads, and also small orbits and 
eyes; the bill varied, as will be seen below; the legs were stout, 
though not always equally so, a hallux being usually present ; 
the wings were extremely reduced, or even wanting; the furcula 
was absent, and the aftershaft of the larger feathers was of great 
size. The neck is supposed to have been partially bare, while 
the webs of the rounded feathers were disunited and more or less 
downy below. Some of the latter were black, with red-brown 
bases and white tips, others were blackish-brown or yellowish. 
Professor Parker, in his recent memoir,’ proposes three Sub- 
famihes, Dinornithinae, Anomalopteryginaec, and Emeinae ; Megal- 
apteryx, which he omits, possibly representing a fourth. The 
first of these contains only one genus, Dinornis, with wide convex 
sternum, comparatively slender limbs, broad skull, and long, wide, 
deflected beak ; the height of D. maximus, the largest of the whole 
group, being estimated at about twelve feet. The second Sub-family 
comprises three genera, Pachyornis, Mesopteryx, and Anomalopteryx, 
forms of small or moderate height and varying bulk, with less 
broad skulls and pointed beaks, the sternum ranging from long and 
narrow to wide and flat. The third possesses a single genus, Hmeus, 
in which the limbs are heavy, the strongly-built skull is narrow, 
and the beak short and broad. Pachyornis elephantopus has extra- 
ordinarily stout, short legs, while Anomalopterya parva, perhaps 
the smallest Moa known, is said to have been about the size of 
a turkey. The validity of some genera and species is, however, 
questionable. Most writers think that the female was larger 
than the male. Mr. De Vis has described a fossil femur from 
Queensland as D. queenslandiae,” but it may belong to the Dro- 
maeidae. According to native testimony the habits were sluggish, 
but the birds were dangerous to approach ; they lived in pairs and 
fed upon green shoots and roots of ferns, making a nest of a pile 
1 Tr. Zool. Soc. London, xiii. 1895, pp. 373-431. 
2 P. Soc. Queensland, i. 1885, pp. 23-28. 
