208 
ZOOLOGY. 
body is cohered 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 7noa, and represented by several species, 
chiefly of the genera Dinornis and Palapieryx 
(Fig. 243), were supposed to have been con- 
temporaries of the Maoris or natives of New 
Zealand. While a fourth toe is present in 
the Apteryx, the moa-bird has only three toes. 
The largest of the moas, Dinor nis gig anteuSy 
stood nearly three metres feet) in height, 
inentary wing ^^^^ tibia or sliin-bonc alone measuring nearly 
From LiUk^n'^s ^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ 1^ inchcs) in length. These 
Zoology. moa birds belong to three genera: Dinor7iis 
with ten, Palapteryx with three, and Aptornis with a sin- 
gle species. 
Allied to the moa was a still larger bird, the Mpyornis 
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, 
Jiave 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 {Eliea Americmia, Fig. 245), with 
three toes to each foot, is a smaller bird, standing 1.3 
metres high, running in small herds on the pampas. The 
two-toed ostrich {Struthio 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 the largest bird 
now living, being 2-2.7 metres (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 
