130 M. de Quatrefages on 



are indebted for the magnificent specimens which now figure 

 in the museum. I shall not be reproached for having dwelt 

 upon these facts, and here publicly thanking men who so 

 worthily understand and practise scientific confraternity. 



II. 



This abundance of materials has enabled us to form a 

 pretty com])lete idea of what the Moas were. We have been 

 able to reconstruct entire skeletons of several species, and thus 

 to judge of their size and their proportions. On the whole, 

 and notwithstanding the secondary differences which distin- 

 guish them, all these birds, as I have already said, resemble 

 the ostrich or the cassowary. The head is small, and nothing 

 in it indicates the existence of a solid crest analogous to that 

 which distinguishes the emeu \_Casuarius\, and has obtained it 

 the name of the helmeted cassowary. The very long neck, at 

 first slender, gradually thickens as it approaches the trunk, as 

 in the cassowary. The skeleton of the body is robust. The 

 sternum alone is comparatively very small and flat. The 

 reduction of this bone, so highly developed in flying birds, is 

 explained here by the smallness of the wings, which are truly 

 rudimentary. On the other band, all that portion of the 

 skeleton connected with the hinder limbs has acquired excep- 

 tional dimensions. The pelvis is massive j the bones of the 

 thigh, the leg, and the metatarsus have enormous heads, and 

 the body of the bone itself is comparatively much thicker 

 than in the living representatives of the type. These cha- 

 racters are particularly marked in Pcdapteryx elephantopus. 

 This bird was a little smaller than our ostriches, and never- 

 theless in it the metatarsus presents a circumference nearly 

 double that of the same bone in the ostrich and the Casso- 

 wary *. 



The size varied in a very noticeable manner in the different 

 species of Moas. The smallest [Meionornis didiformis) was 

 only 3 or 4 feet (0-97-1 '30 m.) in height f. These were 

 therefore very inferior to the ostrich, the size of which varies 

 from 6 to 7 feet (l'95-2'27 m.). But PaLapteryx ingens 

 was precisely of this same size j Dinornis rohustus was 8 to 9 



* Hochstetter, loc. cit. p. 138. 



t I borrow all these numbers from Hochstetter's table of measure- 

 ments (loc. cit. p. 198). That learned traveller seems to have judged of 

 the size not by measming the distance from the beak to the extremity of 

 the feet, but by supposing the bird in repose in its position of equili- 

 brium, the neck inclined forward and presenting a double curvature, just 

 as he lias represented Palapteryx inyens, the entire skeleton of which is at 

 Vieana {loc. cit. p. 188). 



