366 DO THEY STILL SUEVIVE ? [CHAP. ix. 



again. Certainly not look upon them : but may we ever 

 possibly look up to them behold them as we would the 

 Trojan Horse, or the Duke's Statue on the gate at 

 Constitution Hill? Is there a chance that we, like the 

 Romans with Julius Ca3sar " when he was grown so 

 great," may ever " peep about their huge legs " in 

 wonderment at the living monster ? Let us see what 

 hope is to be entertained that the Dinornis will one 

 day shelve the Hippopotamus at the Regent's Park. 



The Professor, when delivering his first oracle in 

 1843 on the single piece of bone, was " willing to risk 

 his reputation on the statement that there has existed, 

 if there does not now exist, in New Zealand, a 

 Struthious bird nearly, if not quite, equal in size to 

 the Ostrich." 



Mr. Swainson, the eminent ornithologist, in a note 

 accompanying some specimens of the bones, says, "They 

 are from the north island .... I have no idea that 

 this strange group of birds is any longer in existence, 

 notwithstanding all the stories of the natives and others. 

 If any may be alive, they will probably be found in the 

 Middle Island, which may be almost said to be unin- 

 habited, except on the coast." 



Our expectations rise ; and in a letter from the Rev. 

 Mr. Williams, dated 1842, we find this : " Within the 

 last few days I have obtained a piece of information 

 worthy of notice. Happening to speak to an American 

 about the bones, he told me that the bird is still in 

 existence in the neighbourhood of Cloudy Bay, in Cook's 

 Straits ; he said that the natives there had mentioned 

 to an Englishman of a whaling party, that there was a 

 bird of extraordinary size to be seen only at night on 

 the side of a hill near there ; and that he, with the 



