333 
POPULAR HISTOEY OE BIRDS. 
hold the contents of a hundred and forty-eight eggs of the 
domestic fowl. To this gigantic bird the name of Mjpyomis 
maximus has been given"^. A bird of these dimensions^ and 
confined to an island however large, must long ago, like the 
dodo, have become extinct. 
Among the most interesting genera of the family Struthi- 
onid{je is Apteryx^ — a genus founded on a long-beaked bird 
from New Zealand, of which two new species [A, Owenii 
and A, Mantellii) have been lately described. An Apteryx 
{A. Mantellii) has been for some time alive in the gardens 
of the Zoological Society. We have only seen it during the 
day, when it sleeps ; and a heavy enough ^ lump^ it seemed 
to be, more nearly resembling some quadruped, with its 
rough hair-like feathers, than a regular, beaked, egg-pro- 
ducing biped. It is said to use its beak much in walking, 
propping itself with it, its legs being placed very far behind. 
Mr. Ow^en has given, in the ^ Transactions of the Zoological 
Society,^ a most detailed account of its structure and skeleton, 
and from him may be expected an account of the habits of 
this nocturnal creature. The specimen at the Zoological 
Gardens is fed on chopped meat and worms. 
* Isidore Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, in ' Comptes Rendus/ 1851, t. 32, No. IV. 
p. 101. 
