Miscellanea. 
359 
THE MOA, OR GIGANTIC BIRD OF NEW ZEALAND. 
In relation to this extraordinary creature, of which several spe¬ 
cies have been determined by Professor Owen from the bones sent 
from New Zealand to Dr. Buckland, Professor Hitchcock (of 
Massachusetts) suggests that the enormously large birds’ nests 
discovered by Captains Cook and Flinders, on the coasts of New 
Holland, may have belonged to this gigantic biped. Captain 
Cook’s notice of these colossal nests is as follows :—“ At two in 
the afternoon, there being no hope of clear weather, we set out 
from Lizard Island (on the N. E. coast of New Holland, and in 
about 15° S. lat.) to return to the ship, and in our way landed 
upon the low sandy island with trees upon it, which we had 
remarked in our going out. Upon this island we saw an incre¬ 
dible number of birds, chiefly sea-fowl, which we killed; and the 
nest of some other bird, we knew not what, of a most enormous 
size.. It was built with sticks upon the ground, and was no less 
than twenty-six feet in circumference, and thirty-two inches high.” 
Captain Flinders found two similar nests on the south coast of 
New Holland, in King George’s Bay. “They were built on the 
ground, from which they rose above two feet, and were of vast 
circumference and great interior capacity : the branches of trees 
and other materials of which each nest was composed, being 
enough to fill a cart.” We have no known bird but the Moa 
that would require so enormous a nest; and it therefore appears 
possible, that if these gigantic birds are extinct in New Zealand, 
still they may be at the present time inhabitants of the warmer 
climate of New Holland. At all events the facts above stated 
are too remarkable not to be worthy the attention of naturalists 
who may visit New Holland.— Athenozum , No. 882, p. 860—1. 
The enormous nests here alluded to by Professor Hitchcock, 
and described by Captains Cook and Flinders, are undoubtedly 
those of the Ichthyiactus leucogaster , Gould , the Sea or Fish 
Eagle of the colonists—a bird common to all Australia. It 
occurs frequently on all the coasts of Tasmania, and builds 
its nest of the size and materials described. One of these 
enormous nests still exists on the summit of one of the Petrel 
