MEMOIR 
ON THE 
EGGS OF SPECIES OF DINORNIS. 

IN 1843 the Rev. Richard Taylor, of the Missionary Station at Wanganui, visiting 
the shore of the coast of Waimate, near the river Waingongoro, found a sandy plain 
covered with a number of little mounds, entirely composed of Moa bones: “ it ap- 
Here fragments of shells 
of some large egg were first met with.’ ‘‘ When I next visited Waingongoro, expecting 
to carry off another load of Moa bones, I found, to my surprise, that they had dis- 
appeared. I afterwards heard that Mr. Mantell had passed that way after me, and had 
cleared the place of all worth taking ”’’. 
The collection so obtained by Mr. Mantell was ‘purchased by the British Museum 
(anté, p. 223) ; and, after the determination of the species of Dinornis represented by 
the bones, | proceeded to compare the numerous fragments of egg-shell. These had 
previously yiel@d the following generic character :-— The shell in Dinornis is not only 
absolutely thinner, but relatively much thinner than in the Ostrich, and, @ fortior?, than 
in the pyornis. The air-pores also have a different form, being linear, not rounded ; 
and the external surface is smoother. In the smoothness and thinness of the shell the 
egg of Dinornis resembles that of dpteryx.” But, ‘‘ viewed under a moderately magni- 
fying power, the surface of the egg of the Apéeryx presents a very fine fibrous or spi- 
cular character; the raised lines, like spicule, crossing in opposite directions, the air- 
pores scattered here and there, and barely perceptible to the human eye’’*. 
After a general comparison and sorting of the shell-pieces and fragments, they indi- 
cated eggs of two, if not three sizes. That to which the most numerous fragments 
x1 
peared,”’ he writes, ‘‘ to be a regular necropolis of the race 
1 Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute, vol, v. 1872, p. 98. 
* Loc. cit. p. 99. 
? Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, Part xx. 1852, p.12. See also Narausrus, ‘ Zeit- 
schrift fiir wissenschaftliche Zoologie,’ 8vo, 1871, to whom I transmitted portions of the egg-shell of Dinornis 
for the purpose of his memoir. 
