183 
Australian Emu. These Prof. Owen classes with the genus Di- 
nornis , the four-toed species with the genus Palapteryx. From smaller 
hones, which were found, the genus Aptornis was established. How- 
ever, the whole family of those wingless birds seems to have been 
very variable, since nearly every individual found, varied not only 
in skc, but also in the number and proportion of the bones 
(especially of the vertebrae). I tis, therefore, very doubtful, whether 
all the species, distinguished by Prof. Owen, are good species. 
Besides bones, there were also fragments of egg-shells found 
on North and South Islands, indicating eggs of a size much larger 
than ostrich-eggs, but not quite equal in size to the egg of Aepi- 
ornis maximus , and of a thin shell with linear furrows. In 1865, 
Mr. J. C. Stevens, Natural History Agent in London, received 
from New Zealand an almost perfect egg of Dinornis. The egg 
is about ten inches in length and seven inches in breadth , the shell 
being of a dirty brownish colour, and about Vr 2 th of an inch in 
thickness. According to the Wellington papers, the egg was dis- 
covered in digging the foundation of a house at Kaikoras (Prov. 
Marlborough) enclosed in a small mound , supposed to be a native 
burying place, as a human skeleton, buried in a sitting posture, 
was found within the grave holding the egg in its hands. This 
interesting relic was offered for public sale on November 2 I th . A 
bona fide bid of £115 was actually made, but it was bought in 
at £125. 1 Besides bones and eggs, little heaps of small rounded 
stones are very frequently found, generally chalcedony, carnelions, 
opals, and achates, which are designated by the natives as “Moa 
stones”. They are sometimes found together with Moa skeletons, 
partly also in places, where there are no traces of Moa bones. It is 
probably correct to suppose that those stones come from the stomach 
of the birds, which like the ostrich and the Australian Emu were in 
the habit of swallowing little stones to assist digestion, ejecting 
them again from time to time, in order to swallow others less rounded. 
robustus, crassns , elephant opus , strulhioides , casuarinus , rheides, didiformis , curlus , gra- 
cilis, Palapteryx ingens, dromioides, geranoides , Aptornis olidiformis. 
1 Geological Magazine, 1865. p. 576. 
