320 
Supposing the two eggs to have been laid in superficial dry soil, as in the oviposition 
of the Ostrich, they might have been subject to some amount of incubation before 
the surface was overflowed and the 2 feet of alluvium was accumulated above them. 
That this had been the case was proved by the discovery, in the first egg, of bones of 
an embryo chick. These were of a brown colour, of a light spongy texture, adhered 
to the tongue through loss of organic matter, and were free from traces of membrane 
or ligament. Of the long bones of the hind limb the shaft only was ossified’, 
Of a somewhat more advanced embryo from an egg of a Dinornis crassus, one half of 
the sternum was obtained (Plate CXV. fig. 8), showing the ossification of that bone, as 
in Apteryx, from two lateral centres. The pelvis of the same embryo showed a con. 
fluence of pubis and ischium at their acetabular ends, the ilium being distinct (ib. fig. 6). 
The scapula and coracoid had coalesced (ib. fig. 7) at this early period, and showed no 
trace of glenoid cavity for a humerus 
Among existing birds I infer, from characters of the sternum, scapular arch, con- 
formity of number of cervical and dorsal vertebra, structure of pelvis and of caudal 
vertebra, character of bones of the hind limbs, palatal and other modifications of the 
beak and cranium of the Apleryx, that the wingless Kivis are most nearly allied to the 
extinct family of Dinornithide. 
In comparison with the existing Struthionide, the Apteryx lays a much larger egg in 
proportion to its size (Plate XCIX. fig. 2); and in the thinness of the shell it more 
closely resembles that of Dinornis, though the air-pores are minute and indistinct. The 
Kivi lays but one egg at the season of oviposition; it is usually placed in leaves or 
moss in a dry nook or hollow at the root of a tree. Evidence has been obtained from 
New Zealand that the Ap/eryx breeds twice a year, and, if fortunate, rears two chicks 
in that period, one at each half-yearly sitting. The discovery of the two Moa-eggs at 
Otago may indicate that the Dizornis laid aud sat on two eggs at BM casas 
The large relative size of the egg also points to such limited number for each sitting. 
From the relative size of the egg of the Apferyx to its pelvis, and a like relation in 
Dinornis erassus, D. elephantopus, and D. ingens, | have hazarded in fig. 1, Plate XCIX. 
a scheme of the egg of Dinornis maximus. ‘The confirmations which have favoured the 
previsions of size and shape of extinct Moas, before their skeletons were discovered, 
encourage me in the belief that a future find of the egg of the hugest kind of Moa may 
show that its estimated size has not been exaggerated. 
' Proc. Zool. Soe, 1867, p. 991; and Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute, vol. v. 1872, p. 10, pl. vi. 
