FEATHERED GIANTS 147 
ures 44 by 6 inches, while that of the AUpyor- 
nis is 9 by 13 inches; or, to put it another 
way, it would hold the contents of six ostrichs’ 
eggs, or one hundred and forty-eight hens’ eggs, 
or thirty thousand humming birds’ eggs; and 
_ while this is very much smaller than a water- 
butt, it is still as large as a bucket, and one or 
two such eggs might suffice to make an omelet 
for Gargantua himself. 
The size of an egg is no safe criterion of the 
size of the bird that laid it, for a large bird 
may lay a small egg, or a small bird a large 
one. Comparing the egg of the great Moa 
with that of our AXpyornis one might think 
the latter much the larger bird, say twelve feet 
in height, when the facts in the case are that 
while there was no great difference in the 
weight of the two, that difference, and a su- 
periority of at least two feet in height, are in 
favor of the bird that laid the smaller egg. 
The record of large eggs, however, belongs to 
the Apteryx, a New Zealand bird smaller 
than a hen, though distantly related to the 
_Moas, which lays an egg about one-third of 
its own weight, measuring 3 by 5.inches ; per- 
