The Romance of Natural History, Second Series

A very interesting communication from Mr Williams accompanied one of the consignments, extracts of which I will quote. It bears date "Poverty Bay, New Zealand, 17th May 1842." "It is about three years ago, on paying a visit to this coast, south of the East Cape, that the natives told me of some extraordinary monster, which they said was in existence in an inaccessible cavern on the side of a hill near the river Wairoa; and they shewed me at the same time some fragments of bone taken out of the beds of rivers, which they said belonged to this creature, to which they gave the name of Moa. When I came to reside in this neighbourhood I heard the same story a little enlarged; for it was said that this creature was still existing at the said hill, of which the name is Wakapunake, and that it is guarded by a reptile of the Lizard species, but I could not learn that any of the present generation had seen it. I still considered the whole as an idle fable, but offered a large reward to any who would catch me either the bird or its protector." These offers procured the collection of a considerable number of fossil bones, on which Mr Williams makes the following observations:-

"1. None of these bones have been found on the dry land, but are all of them from the banks and beds of fresh-water rivers, buried only a little distance in the mud.... All the streams are in immediate connexion with hills of some altitude.

"2. This bird was in existence here at no very distant time, though not in the memory of any of the inhabitants: for the bones are found in the beds of the present streams, and do not appear to have been brought into their present situation by the action of any violent rush of waters.

"3. They existed in considerable numbers,-(an observation which has since been abundantly confirmed.)

"4. It may be inferred that this bird was long-lived, and that it was many years before it attained its full size. (The writer grounds this inference on the disparity in dimensions of the corresponding bones, supposing that they all belonged to one and the same species; which, however, was an erroneous assumption.)

"5. The greatest height of the bird was probably not less than fourteen or sixteen feet. The leg-bones now sent give the height of six feet to the root of the tail.

"Within the last few days I have obtained a piece of information worthy of notice. Happening to speak to an American about these bones, he told me that the bird is still in existence in the neighbourhood of Cloudy Bay, in Cook's Straits. He said that the natives there had mentioned to an Englishman belonging to a whaling party, that there was a bird of extraordinary size to be seen only at night, on the side of a hill near the place, and that he, with a native and a second Englishman, went to the spot; that, after waiting some time, they saw the creature at a little distance, which they describe as being about fourteen or sixteen feet high. One of the men proposed to go nearer and shoot, but his companion was so exceedingly terrified, or perhaps both of them, that they were satisfied with looking at the bird, when, after a little time, it took the alarm, and strode off up the side of the mountain.

"This incident might not have been worth mentioning, had it not been for the extraordinary agreement in point of the size of the bird [with my deductions from the bones]. Here are the bones which will satisfy you that such a bird has been in existence; and there is said to be the living bird, the supposed size of which, given by an independent witness, precisely agrees."

The story told of the whaler appears to me to bear marks of truth. The bold essay to explore, the terror inspired by the gigantic figure, especially in the solemnity of night, the description of the manners of the bird running and striding, so like those of the Apteryx, with which its bones shew the Moa to have been closely allied, and the inglorious return of the party without achieving any exploit, are all too natural to permit the thought that no more than inventive power has been at work.

And well may the colossus have inspired fear. The bones sent to London greatly exceed in bulk those of the largest horse. The leg-bone of a tall man is about one foot four inches in length, and the thigh of O'Brien, the Irish giant, whose skeleton, eight feet high, is mounted in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, is not quite two feet. But the leg-bone (tibia) of the Dinornis we know measured as much as two feet ten inches, and we have no reason to suppose, considering the disparity that exists in the specimens examined, that we have seen by any means the largest.

Additional reason for supposing these magnificent birds to have existed not long ago, is found in the fact that specimens of their eggs have been preserved. The circumstances attendant on the discovery and identification of these possess a remarkable interest. In the volcanic sand of New Zealand Mr Walter Mantell found a gigantic egg, which we may reasonably infer to be that of either Dinornis or Palapteryx, of the magnitude of which he gives us a familiar idea by saying that his hat would have been but just large enough to have served as an egg-cup for it. This is the statement of a man of science, and therefore we may assume an approximate degree of precision in the comparison.

I do not know the size of Mr Mantell's hat, but I find that the transverse diameter of my own is six inches or a little more. If we may take this as the shorter diameter of the ovoid, the longer would probably be about eight and a half inches; dimensions considerably greater than those of the Ostrich's egg (which are about six and a quarter in length), but not what we should have expected from a bird from twelve to fourteen feet in height. And this the rather when we consider that the egg of the New Zealand Apteryx, to which these birds manifest a very close affinity, is one of dimensions that are quite surprising in proportion to the bulk of the bird. The Apteryx is about as big as a turkey, standing two feet in height, but its egg measures four inches ten lines by three inches two lines in the respective diameters. The egg of the Dinornis giganteus, to bear the same ratio to the bird as this, would be of the incredible length of two feet and a half, by a breadth of one and three quarters! Possibly this specimen, though indubitably the egg of one of this great family of extinct birds, may after all be that of one of the subordinate species.

But about the same time as Mr Mantell's discovery, one of equal interest was made in Madagascar. The master of a French ship obtained, in 1850, from natives of the island, three eggs, of far greater size, and fragments of the leg-bones of an immense bird. These, on their arrival at Paris, formed the subjects of valuable investigations by M. Isidore Geoffroy St Hilaire[16] and Professor Owen.[17]

The native statement was, that one of the eggs had been found entire in the bed of a torrent, among the debris of a land-slip; that a second egg, with some fragments of bone, was subsequently found in a formation which is stated to be alluvial; a third egg, which the natives had perforated at one end, and used as a vessel, was also found. This last egg was broken in the carriage, the other two arrived in Europe entire.

These two, though nearly alike in size, differed considerably in their relative proportions and shape, the one being shorter and thicker, with more equal ends than the other. The following table shews the dimensions of both compared with those of an ostrich's egg:-

M. Geoffroy St Hilaire estimates the larger of the two to contain 10? quarts, or the contents of nearly six eggs of the Ostrich, or sixteen of the Cassowary, or a hundred and forty-eight of the Hen, or fifty thousand of the Humming bird.[18]

The fragments of bone indicated a bird of the same natural affinities as the New Zealand colossi, and of dimensions not widely remote from theirs. Professor Owen thinks that it did not exceed in height or size Dinornis giganteus, and that there is a probability that it was slightly smaller. The Madagascar bird has been named Æpyornis maximus.

The fragments of the egg of the New Zealand bird (still uncertain as to the species to which it is to be referred) shew that the shell was absolutely thinner, and therefore relatively much thinner than that of the Ostrich's egg; the air-pores, too, have a different form, being linear, instead of round, and the surface is smoother. In these qualities, the New Zealand egg resembles that of the Apteryx; in the thickness and roughness of the egg of Æpyornis there is more similarity to those of the Ostrich and Cassowary. The colour of the Madagascar egg is a dull greyish yellow; but it is possible that this may be...