[13] While we do not know the limit of size to a flying creature, none has as yet been found whose wings would spread over twenty feet from tip to tip, and it is evident that wings larger than this would demand great strength for their manipulation.
REFERENCES
There is a fine collection of mounted skeletons of various species of Moas in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Mass., and another in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. A few other skeletons and numerous bones are to be found in other institutions, but the author is not aware of any egg being in this country. Specimens of the Æpyornis are rare in this country, but Mr. Robert Gilfort, of Orange, N.J., is the possessor of a very fine egg. A number of eggs have been sold in London, the prices ranging from £200 down to £42, this last being much less than prices paid for eggs of the great auk. But then, the great auk is somewhat of a fad, and there are just enough eggs in existence to bring one into the market every little while. Besides, the number of eggs of the great auk is a fixed quantity, while no one knows how many more of Æpyornis remain to be discovered in the swamps of Madagascar. No specimens of the gigantic Patagonian birds are now in this country, but a fine example of one of the smaller forms, Pelycornis, including the only breast-bone yet found, is in the Museum of Princeton University.
The largest known tibia of a Moa, the longest bird-bone known, is in the collection of the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand; it is 3 feet 3 inches long. This, however, is exceptional, the measurements of the leg-bones of an ordinary Dinornis maximus being as follows: Femur, 18 inches; tibia, 32 inches; tarsus, 19 inches, a total of 5 feet 9 inches. The egg measures 10-1/2 by 6-1/2 inches.
There is plenty of literature, and very interesting literature, about the Moas, but, unfortunately, the best of it is not always accessible, being contained in the "New Zealand Journal of Science" and the "Transactions of the New Zealand Institute." The volume of "Transactions" for 1893, being vol. xxvi., contains a very full list of articles relating to the Moas, compiled by Mr. A. Hamilton; it will be found to commence on page 229. There is a good article on Moa in Newton's "Dictionary of Birds," a book that should be in every library.
Fig. 32.—The Three Giants, Phororhacos, Moa, Ostrich.