THE MO A A T HOME. 647 



ble that as more careful comparisons are made of larger series of bones, the num- 

 ber of species will be reduced. It is an interesting fact that Cook's Straits, 

 which separates the two islands, "seems to have been an effectual bar to any 

 migration from one island to the other," as the same species are not fc*ind on 

 both islands. Prof. Owen infers from the beak of the Dinornis, "formed after 

 the model of the adze or pick-axe," and "the robust proportions of the cervical 

 vertebrae, especially of their spinous processes," that it had " a more laborious 

 task than the mere plucking of seeds, fruit, or herbage," and that "the beak was 

 associated with the feet in the labor of dislodging the farinaceous roots of the 

 ferns that grow in characteristic abundance.in New Zealand." 



Portions of dried skin and a few feathers of the Moa, as already stated, have 

 been found; the color of the barbs of the feathers are chestnut red and the. round- 

 ed portion of the tip is white. These feathers, according to Capt. Hatton, show 

 the bird to have been more nearly allied to the American Rhea and Emu than to 

 any of the struthious birds of the old world. 



Fragments of Moa eggs are quite numerous, particularly in the kitchen mid- 

 dens of the Moa-hunters, and a few nearly or quite perfect specimens have been 

 found. Dr. Hector describes one 8.9x6.1 inches in diameter, which contained 

 the remains of an embryonic chick. Another specimen measured 9.5 inches 

 long. 



These are certainly monstrous eggs, and yet the fossil bird of Madagascar 

 {Aepiornis), although a smaller bird than the great Dinornis, laid a much larger 

 egg, two specimens of which are in the Garden of Plants, Paris, and measure re- 

 spectively 13x9 and 1 2x10 inches in diameter. And yet, after all, neither of these 

 birds laid as large an egg in comparison to its size as does the Apteryx of New 

 Zealand at the present day. 



And now as; a fitting close to this brief summary, we quote from Prof. 

 Owen's first paper on the Dinornis: "The extraordinary number of wingless 

 birds, and the vast stature of some of the species peculiar to New Zealand and 

 which have finally become extinct in that small tract of dry land, suggest it to be 

 , the remnant of a larger tract or continent over which the singular struthious 

 Fauna family ranged. One might almost be disposed to regard New Zealand as 

 one end of a mighty wave of the unstable and ever shifting crust of the earth, 

 of v/hich the opposite end, after having been long submerged, has again risen 

 with its accumulated deposits in North America showing us in the Connecticut 

 sandstones of the Permian (Trias) period the foot-prints of the gigantic birds 

 which trod its surface before it sank; and to surmise that the intermediate body 

 of the land-wave, along which the Dinornis may have traveled to New Zealand, 

 has progressively subsided, and now lies beneath the Pacific Ocean." — Natural 

 Science Bulletin. 



YI— 41 



