AVES. 



37 



onid<e. He ventured, upon the suggestion of this fragment alone, to assert 

 that there had existed in New Zealand " a struthious bird, nearly if not equal 

 in size to the ostrich." Subsequent discovei'ies have abundantly confirmed 

 this induction of the great English anatomist. Many hundreds of bones have 

 since been found in the alluvium beds along the shores of New Zealand, and 

 every part of the colossal bird is now known. 



In 1875, Dr. Haast, Director of the Canterbury Museum, 

 proposed two families, with tw^o genera in each family, 

 thus: — Family Dinornithidfe: (a) genus Dinornis; (p) genus 

 Meionornis, and family Palapterygidce : {a) genus Palap- 

 t€)'i/.v ; (b) genus Euryapteryx. 



Under these four genera, as proposed by Dr. Haast, there 

 have been about twenty species described. These species 

 are founded mainly on the size and proportion of the bones 

 — particularly the bones of the leg, and it is not improbable 

 that as more careful comparisons are made of larger series 

 of bones, the number of species will be reduced. It is an 

 interesting fact that Cook's Straits, which separates the 

 two islands, "seems to have been an effectual bar to any 

 migration from one island to the other, as the same species 

 are not found on both islands. Moa is the common name 

 applied to these great wingless birds from New Zealand. 

 They had the general proportions — long, stout legs, heavy, 

 rounded body, and long neck — of the Ostrich or Emeu. 

 Like this latter they had three toes. The smallest species 

 was no larger than the Emeu, while the largest species ^:t.:cc.1«^^^? 

 {Dinornis gigaateus), attained a height of over ten feet '■' 



and must have been able to stretch to a height of fourteen feet. 



Portions of dried skin and a few feathers of the Moa have been found; the 

 color of the barbs of the feathers are chestnut red and the rounded portion of 

 the tip is white. These feathers, according to Capt. Hatton, show the bird to 

 have been more nearly allied to the American Rhea and Emeu than to any of 

 the struthious birds of the old world. 



No. 54. [1276] Dinornis 



Owen. 



Egg (cast). Fragments of Moa eggs are quite numerous, particularly in the 

 kitchen middens of the Moa-hunters, and a few nearly or quite perfect speci- 

 mens have been found. Dr. Hector describes one 8.9x6.1 inches in diameter, 

 which contained the remains of an embrionic chick. Another specimen 

 measured 9.5 inches long. 



These are certainly monstrous eggs, and yet the fossil bird of Madagascar 

 (u^piornis), although no larger bird than the great Dinornis, laid a much larger 

 egg, two specimens of which are in the Garden of Plants, Paris, and measure 

 respectively 13x9 and 12x10 inches in diameter. And yet, after all, neither of 

 these birds laid as large an egg in comparison to its size as does the Apteryx 

 at the present day. 



According to Owen " the Cuckoo lays the smallest egg in proportion to its 

 size, the Apteryx the largest: in this species it weighs 14^ ozs. ; the entire bird, 

 60 ozs. ; so that the egg is nearly equal to one-fourth of the parent." 



