208 



ZOOLOGY. 



body is covered with long hairy feathers. The female lays 

 only a single large egg, which weighs one quarter as much 

 as the bird itself, in a hole in the ground. It is a night 

 bird, hiding by day under trees. 



The giant, ostrich like, extinct birds of New Zealand, 



called moa, and represented by several species, 



chiefly of the genera Dinornis and Palapleryx 



(Fig. 243), were supposed to have been cou- 



temjioraries of tlie Maoris or natives of New 



Zealand. While a fourth toe is present in 



the Aptaryx, ihe moa-bird has only three toes. 



Tlielargest of the moas, Dinornis giganteus, 



stood nearly three metres (It^ feet) in height, 



^mentary~w'ing '''"^ tibia Or sliin-boue alone measuring nearly 



of the Emeu. .^ metre (2 feet 10 inches) in length. These 



From Lutken s ^ / o 



Zoology. moa birds belong to three genera: Dinornis 



with ten, Palapteryx with three, and Ajitornis with a sin- 

 gle species. 



Allied to the moa was a still larger bird, the ^pyornis 

 maximus of Madagascar, supposed by some to be the roc 

 of the Arabian Nights' Tales. Of this colossal bird, re- 

 mains of the skull, some vertebrae, and a tibia 64 cent, long, 

 have been found. The single egg discovered is of the capa- 

 city of one hundred and fifty hen's eggs. 



Here also belong the three-toed cassowaries of the East 

 Indies and Australia, and the emeu (Fig. 244) of Australia; 

 both of these birds are about 2 metres (5-7 feet) high. The 

 South American ostrich {Eltea Americana, Fig. 245), with 

 three toes to each foot, is a snuiUer bird, standing 1.3 

 metres high, running in small herds on the pampas. The 

 two-toed ostrich {Str^dhio camelus), of the deserts of Africa 

 and Arabia, now reared for the feathers of its wings and 

 tail, so valuable as articles of commerce, is tlie largest bird 

 now living, being 2-2.7 metix-s (6-8 feet) high. It can out- 

 run a horse, and lives in flocks. It lays about thirty large 

 white eggs in a nest in the sand; they are covered in the 

 daytime by the hen or left exposed to the sun, while at 



