Australia, New Zealand and some islands of the South seas

by Frank G. Carpenter

SINBAD, the Sailor, the bird expert of the Arabian Nights, should have come to New Zealand. Here he would have found a bird as tall as a giraffe that laid eggs as big as a pumpkin. Sindbad was never able to prove that his roc really existed, but if you will come out to New Zealand, you can see for yourself remains of its giant bird, the moa. There is a stuffed one at Christchurch, besides the skeletons of a dozen others. I have examined the real eggs the moa laid when it trod the soil of this country a century or so ago.

The great moa is supposed to be the biggest bird ever created. I sat down before the huge model of it in the museum at Christchurch and made these notes: “If I were to stand under the bird its tail feathers would tickle the top of my head. Its ankle is as big around as my calf and its gray body is the size of a small haystack. Its tall, thin neck is stretched so high above its breast that Barnum’s circus managers would have had a hard time getting the animal into a freight car. Its legs are as strong as those of a camel, and it looks quite as big as the biggest ‘ship of the desert.’ Its enormous feet have claws much like those of a turkey, save that each is a foot long. I doubt not the moa could have stamped out the life of a man at one kick.” Beside one of the skeletons is placed the skeleton of an ordinary man. The head of the bird rises at least eight feet above the skull of the man.

Next to the kauri pine, the totara is the most valuable timber tree of the Dominion. The country has been denuded of so much of its forests that conservation policies have become necessary.

On the slopes of Mt. Cook near the Tasman Glacier the government has established a sanctuary for the kea parrot, which is elsewhere destroyed on sight because of its sheep-killing habit.

The bones of the moa were first discovered about eighty years ago, and later great quantities of them were found. The bird existed in New Zealand within a comparatively recent period and there are Maoris who say that their forefathers knew of it. The probability is that it was here long before the Maoris came, and there is no doubt that it was once hunted and eaten in great numbers. In old ovens that have been excavated bones of cooked moa have been found. But as for who the moa hunters were and when they lived, no one knows.

The moa eggs were each about a foot long. One was found some years ago by a labourer digging the foundation of a house. He had gone down several feet when he came upon the skeleton of a man in a sitting posture. The egg was held in the skeleton’s bony fingers in such a manner as to bring it immediately opposite the mouth, and it is supposed that it was placed there with the idea that the ghost of the dead might have something to eat during the intervals of his long sleep. The stone spear and axe by the side of the man showed that he was probably a warrior, and his skull bore evidence of having received several hard knocks, possibly on the battlefield. The egg was ten inches long and seven inches in diameter and its shell was about as thick as a twenty-five-cent piece. It was perfectly empty, but whether time or the dead warrior had sucked out the contents the records do not say.

Though a bird, the moa had no wings. It seems to have been a giant edition of some of the strange birds New Zealand has now; for there are to-day in the Dominion wingless birds not larger than good-sized chickens. I refer to the kiwis, some of which I have seen alive here at Christchurch. I have had several of them in my hands, and by feeling carefully I found what seemed like a little lump on each side where the wings ought to be. Some say that the kiwi is without wings because the dense growth of the New Zealand bush prevented its flights and so, through the ages, it lost its wings for lack of use. It makes up for this deficiency, however, by its swiftness of foot. It runs very fast, with its body held in an oblique position and its neck stretched forward. This bird has hair-like feathers of somewhat the colour of a quail, and a long bill, sharp at the point, with which it can bore down into the mud for worms. Its legs are much like those of the moa.

The kiwi is a night bird. At Canterbury College, where I saw them, the birds were penned up like chickens and had to be brought out of the coop for me to examine them. They seemed almost blinded by the light and ran about this way and that in apparent terror. Kiwis are becoming scarce in New Zealand, for the Maoris are fond of them as food, and their feathers are highly prized for cloaks. They are now to be found only in the dense beds of ferns covering parts of New Zealand. It is difficult to catch them, for they look much like the dead fern leaves and take refuge in crevices in the rocks and in the deep holes that they dig in the ground for their nests. They used to be hunted with dogs.