INTBODUCTION. 



xvn 



ancient, and are those that roamed originally over the afterwards submerged continent, and 

 that the smaller-sized Moas, of different genera and species, are the descendants of those which 

 had been specialised in the various islands during the long epoch following the continental 

 submergence.* Professor Hutton, accepting the outcome of the late Professor Parker's important 

 researches into the embryology of this form, admits that in the Kiwi the hind limbs undergo a 

 relative diminution in size between the time of hatching and the attainment of fully adult pro- 

 portions, especially in the case of the female ; and he adds : " This implies that the ancestral 

 Kiwis were, like Megalapteryx, larger than the living birds ; and we may infer the same thing 

 from the great size of the egg. It is a legacy from a larger bird which is not easy to get rid of. 

 The greater proportionate size of the female is probably due to its having to lay such a very large 

 egg. The males have decreased in size more rapidly than the females, who were handicapped by 

 such large eggs." Professor Hutton suggested that the reverse of this obtained in the case of the 

 Moas ; but there is no evidence of that. After a critical examination of all the evidence afforded 

 by the bones and their distribution, he says : " Evidently Anomalopteryx and Palapteryx are the 

 oldest forms ; but if Palapteryx had wings it could not have been derived from the wingless 

 Anomalopteryx ; and, if the birds were increasing in size, Anomalopteryx could not have been 

 derived from Palapteryx "i Exactly so ; but on my hypothesis these difficulties disappear, and 

 the supposed conditions are in harmony with it. In this connection I may mention the curious 

 fact that, although Anomalopteryx clidiformis is one of the smallest of the Moas, scarcely 

 exceeding in size the European Bustard, it had proportionately the largest skull of all the 

 Dinoniithidce. Commenting on this, Professor Owen remarks that, if the peculiarly nutritious 

 roots of the common fern contributed, together with buds or foliage of trees, to the food of the 

 various species of Moa, the concomitant gain of power in the locomotive and fossorial limbs does 

 not appear to have called for a proportionate growth or development of brain or of bill. 



As with the Kiwi, it would seem that the development of the Moa was downwards, or in the 

 way of degeneration, and the restriction of its range to small insular areas would doubtless favour 

 this dwarfing process. 



One can understand how in process of time the various species of Kiwi now known to us 

 have become evolved from the parent stock, by means of natural selection and the survival of the 

 fittest, operating under well-established natural laws. Any divergences of character, however 

 small to begin with, long continued and persisted in, would account for any number of so-called 

 species in various parts of the country. For, a species — what is it ? What does the name 

 denote ? Of what use is it to science except as an artificial definition, and for the greater con- 

 venience of systematic classification ? 



But the great difficulty in any theory on the subject is to account for the presence of the 

 Grey Kiwi on the west coast of both Islands. Our knowledge of its existence in the North 

 Island rests on a skin brought to me in a fresh state by Mr. Morgan Carkeek, who obtained it 



* The late Professor Jeffrey Parker, F.R.S., in a letter dated Feb. 14, 1898, wrote to me saying that his observa- 

 tions on the skull of the Dinornithidse contradict my view that the larger forms of Moa are the most ancient, the oldest 

 and least specialised type of skull being that of Mesopteryx, whilst the very tall forms and thick-legged ones are highly 

 specialised in different directions. He adds : " You are quite right about the extreme specialisation of Apteryx." 



Professor Hutton at one time believed that the smaller forms of Dinornithidae in New Zealand must have preceded 

 the larger ; but it would seem that, after closer study of the subject, he has arrived at the same conclusion as myself ; 

 for, in his article on ' The Eise and Fall of the Moa,' communicated to the Canterbury Press in November, 1896, he 

 says : " The commoner kinds of Moa were comparatively small birds, from three feet to five feet high, and it seems 

 probable that the giants of the race, which attained a height of about 12 feet, had all died out before the advent of man. 

 At any rate, there is no record of any bones of Dinornis maximus or of Dinomis giganteus having been found among the 

 remains of Maori feasts." 



t ' On the Moas of New Zealand,' by Captain F. W. Hutton, F.R.S., Trans. N. Z. Inst., vol. xxiv., p. 149. 

 C 



