152i THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



and conterminous Arabia. The genus of three-toed 

 ostriches (rhea) is similarly restricted to South 

 America. The emeu (Dromaius) has Australia 

 assigned to it. The continent of the cassowary 

 (Casaurius) has been broken up into Sumatra, Java, 

 Banda, and other islands, extending from the south- 

 eastern peninsula of Asia to New Guinea. A second 

 species of cassowary has recently been imported to 

 our zoological gardens from the more southern isl- 

 and of New Britain. The singular nocturnal wing- 

 less kivi ( apteryx ). is peculiar to the island of New 

 Zealand. 



Other species and genera which seem to be like the 

 apteryx, as it were mocked with feathers and rudi- 

 ments of wings, have wholly ceased to exist within 

 the memory of man in the islands to which they were 

 respectively restricted. The dodo (Didus ineptus) 

 of the Mauritius, and the solitaire (Pezophops 

 solitaria) are instances. 



In New Zealand also there existed, within the 

 memory of the Maori ancestry, huge birds having 

 their nearest affinities to the still existing apteryx of 

 that island, but generically distinct from that and 

 all other known birds. I have proposed the name 

 of Dinornis for this now extinct genus, of which more 

 than a dozen well-defined species have come to my 

 knowledge, all peculiar to New Zealand, and the 

 last discovered the strangest, by reason of the ele- 

 phantine proportions of its feet. A tridactyle wing- 

 less bird of another genus, ./Epyornis, second only to 

 the gigantic Dinornis in size, appears to have only 

 recently become extinct if it be extinct in the 



