264 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
the ostrich, which is reckoned the least intelligent of living 
birds. 
My first acquaintance with the eggs of Dinornis was founded 
on the fragments of the shell obtained from ancient cooking- 
pits.* Thereupon I broke up an ostrich egg into similar frag- 
ments ; then compared the curves of their outer surface. The 
long and the short diameters, i.e. the longitudinal and the trans- 
verse dimensions of the egg, were thus indicated in the ostrich 
fragments ; by like indications in those of the bits of the 
Dinornis egg-shell, I recomposed the longitudinal and trans- 
verse contours of the entire egg, as shown in Plate XC. of the 
undercited work ; and such egg I hypothetically referred to the 
Dinornis elephantopus .f 
In the year 1865 the entire egg of a larger species was sent 
to London, and submitted to my inspection. It fetched 100£. 
at the sale by auction at Stevens’s rooms. Its history is as 
follows : — A colonist, digging the foundations of a store at 
Kaikoura, Canterbury, New Zealand, came upon the skeleton of 
a Maori, who had been buried in a sitting posture, and upon 
his lap had been placed, at the interment, this egg. His green- 
stone adze was also found in the grave. From the superiority 
of length of this egg to that ascribed to the Dinornis elephan- 
topus , with a minor degree of transverse diameter, I conceived 
it might belong to the taller and less robust species, Dinornis 
ingens.% I subsequently received from Dr. Hector intelligence 
of the discovery of an egg of the Dinornis crassus , containing 
some bones of a partly-hatched chick ; they included a sternum, 
pelvis, coraeo-scapular arch, showing the unequivocal character- 
istics of their genus, § but no wing-bones. On these and some 
other data I have formed an estimate of the size of the egg 
of the Dinornis maximus , at sixteen inches by twelve inches 
in the two diameters. || 
The living Kivi (Apteryx') is remarkable for the large pro- 
portional size of the egg, of which it lays but one at each 
procreative season. It is probable that its extinct gigantic 
kindred could as little afford a relatively greater incubating area 
to the shelly case of their embryo. 
Of the numerous transmissions from divers localities in both 
islands of New Zealand, not any have included a bone of a land- 
mammal having any claim to be considered an aboriginal 
* “Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London,” Part xx. 1852, 
p. 12. 
t “ Memoirs on the Wingless Birds of New Zealand,” 4to. vol. i. p. 317, 
pi. xc. 
f Ih., p. 318, pi. cxvii. 
§ lb., p. 319, pi. cxv. 
|| lb., p. 320, pi. xcix. 
