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The Dinornis-A Bird Without Wings
vented from escaping. ( In the aquatic birds the feathers are con stantly lubricated by an oily secretion, which completely excludes the water.
In the wings the quillfeathers exhibit in the highest degree a union of the two qualities of lightness and strength, while by their arrangement they can be folded together into a very small compass.
One thing that surprises us is the immense size of some of those birds whose remains have been discovered in New Zealand. These birds probably existed in a number of the tropical islands, yet very few of the islands near Australia, except Van Diemen's Land, and very few indeed of those other islands which form the numerous archipelagoes of the eastern and southern seas, are sufficiently well known, or have such an extent of superwhich they are endowed by Nature. All|ficial deposit, that we could with any reathe feathers being directed backward, the son expect them to furnish many fossil most rapid motion through the air only relics. New Zealand is one of the islands from which such remains have been ob- vessel for carrying water. From the tained; and the condition of the bones, dimensions of the bones, it is supposed and the circumstances under which they that this bird must have been at least are found, render it impossible to state double the size of the Ostrich; and it very decidedly in what bed they there appears not improbable that it may still be in existence in the interior of the occur.
It is, however, something to know that almost unknown island in which its re in these islands there existed formerly, mains were found. and possibly not very long ago, a con- The Dinornis. siderable and important group of wing- Another singular, gigantic extinct bird less birds, of which one representative, has been discovered. This is the famous the Apteryx, still remains, although ap- Dinornis, the bones and even the eggs of parently that will soon be lost. Many which have been found in considerable extinct species of these strange animals quantities imbedded in the volcanic sands have been found in the gravel of the of New Zealand. northern island, and they vary greatly in A nearly complete skeleton is found in size, some having been far larger than the Museum of the Royal College of Surthe largest Ostrich, while others were geons, London, from which it has been very small. In all these the general calculated that it must have been at least character is nearly the same, the animals being much stouter and more powerful in proportion than the Ostrich, and absolutely without any trace of wings. An Immense Bird.