1 34 Transactions. — 21lscelhineoits. 



was so mucli higher, it is Ccasy to show that they could not miiltijily, or even 

 exist, under the present temperature of the elements in this country. 



Judging from the warm time in which they flourished most, as well as 

 from their enormous size, and from the class of birds to which they belong, we 

 can scarcely suppose that they incubated their own eggs, but that they must 

 (like many species of birds at present in warm countries) have allowed the heat 

 of the earth and atmosphere to do the work of incubation. 



The Moa was not at all adapted for hatching its own eggs. Birds that do 

 so make great use of their wings in covering their eggs ; in fact, in the act of 

 hatching, wings appear to be indispensable, without them the heat of the body 

 could not be kept in the nest, the cold air would circulate under through the 

 body, scatter the heat, and kill the vitality of the egg; in fact, it is questionable 

 whether a fowl without wings could produce the first stages of incubation in an 



Now the Moa is said to have been entii-ely wingless, if so, it is certain 

 that they did not sit on their eggs. 



Again, their enormous size and weight would make it a very awkward piece 

 of work to sit on a nest of eggs, the shells of which are not more than the 

 twentieth of an inch thick. Fancy a bullock or a horse of 400 lbs. or 600 lbs. 

 w^eight getting down on such a nest of eggs, and you have a very good j^icture 

 of the gigantic Dinornis doing the same. That the warmtli of the earth and 

 atmosphere incubated the eggs appears to me indisputable, and if an approxi- 

 mate period can be found when the earth and atmosphere became too cold to 

 do so I place that as the commencement of the Moa's decline. 



This, I am aware, would not take place at the same time all over the 

 country. It would, of course, depend on the altitude. Here, I am told, we 

 are at an altitude of about 2,000 feet, where the cold may have stojiped their 

 increase, and put an end to them many hundreds of years before the same 

 cause would destroy them in a place like the valley of the Molyneux, where 

 even at Clyde the river is only 600 feet above sea-level. Also, the further 

 north, as in the North Island, the longer they would have held out. 



Even at the present time, in many places in the country, as in the sand 

 banks of the Molyneux, the atmosphere in the day time would be sufiiciently 

 warm to hatch the eg^, but the cold night air would place life beyond resusci- 

 tation. When the frost and snow of winter began to set in, though far 

 milder than now, it would have distressed the Moa, as on account of its great 

 size it could not find shelter like smaller birds, hence it would select places 

 where it found the most warmth. 



Tlie spring water in the bone-pit being of the same temperature as the earth, 

 and far above freezing point (in fact, it may have been a thermal spring), when 

 all round the bird could not put down its foot without being bitten with frost, 



