Mons and Moa-hunters. 131 



feet (2*60-2*92 m.) high, and Dinomis mn.virmis raised 

 its head to 9 or 10 feet (2*92-3*25 m.) from the surface 

 of the ground. Thus it exceeded by nearly a metre our 

 largest ostriches. According to Thomson, cited by M. Al- 

 phonse Edwards in an unpublished work which he has been 

 kind enough to communicate to me, there even existed indi- 

 viduals 13 to 14 English feet (4-0-4-25 m.) in height. 



By comparing a great number of bones of adult individuals 

 of the same species, Dr. Haast has ascertained that they always 

 formed two series of slightly different size. He has attributed 

 this inequality to sex, and, guided by what occurs in the 

 Aptetyx, he regards the larger bones as having belonged to 

 females ^. 



Besides the osseous remains of Moas, there have been dis- 

 covered fragments of eggs and even some entire eggs, most 

 of which, unfortunately, have been broken. But it has been 

 possible to restore a considerable number f. These eggs, of 

 a pale yellow colour^, are dotted over with hollow points and 

 little grooves §. Their volume was considerably greater than 

 that of the eggs of the ostrich, but without equalling in this 

 respect those of JEpi/ornis ||. In one of them the bones of 



* Address (' Transactions ' &c. vol. vi. p. 428). 



t Mr. Mantell alone has reconstructed a dozen of these eggs, which he 

 has for the most part divided between the British Museum and the 

 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Among these specimens, 

 which testify so strongly to the address and patience of the author, there 

 are some which contain no less than 200 or 300 pieces brought together 

 (" On Moa-beds," 'Transactions ' &c. vol. v. p. U4). 



X [The fragments of egg-shell which accompanied the York specimen 

 were of a dark ^veen colour ; the pale yellow specimens must have been 

 bleached. — Tr.J 



§ " On the Microscopical Structure of the Egg-shell of the Moa/' by 

 Capt. F. W. Hutton {' Transactions ' &c. vol. iv. p. 166, pi. ix. figs. 1-5). 

 The shell of the egg, about 1'75 millim. (0-07 inch) in thickness, consists 

 of two layers. The outer one is formed by lamellae parallel to the sur- 

 face, the inner one by a kind of prisms perpendicular to the former. 

 Other observers speak of these eggs as being perfectly smooth. It may be, 

 pei'haps, that the little grooves in question here are due to the action of 

 grains of sand driven by the wind. We know, in fact, that this action is 

 exerted even upon rocks much more resistant than egg-sheUs, and this 

 fact has been demonstrated precisely in New Zealand. 



fl JEjnjoniis maximus inhabited Madagascar. It was destroyed by the 

 hand of man, but we do not know at what period. The eggs and some 

 bones were described for the first time by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Holaire 

 (' Comptes Rendus,' 1851, tome xxxii. p. 101, and Ann. des Sci. Nat. 

 ser. 3, tome xiv. pp. 206 and 213). M, Alphonse Edwards, having 

 received fresh materials, has produced a very complete memoir upon this 

 species (' Recherches sur la faune ornithologique des lies Mascareignes 

 et de Madagascar,' p. 85, 1873). From the investigations of this natu- 

 ralist it appears that jJLjyyornis approached the Moas, altliough presenting 

 characters proper to make it the type of a family probably including three 



