In North America Professor Cope has reported a large wingless fossil bird from the Eocene strata of New Mexico. In England we have two such—namely, the Dasornis, from the London Clay of Sheppey (Eocene period), and the Gastornis, from the Woolwich beds near Croydon, and from Paris (also Eocene).
It will thus be seen that big struthious birds have a long history, going far back into the Tertiary era, and that they once had a much wider geographical range than they have now. Doubtless, future discoveries will tend to fill up the gaps between all these various types, both living and extinct, and to connect them together in one chain of evolution.
The last great find of Moa-birds in New Zealand took place only last year, and was reported by a correspondent to the Scotsman (November 13, 1891), writing from Oamaru. In the letter that appeared at the above date, our friend Mr. H. O. Forbes announces the discovery of an immense number of bones, estimated to represent at least five hundred Moas! They were found in the neighbourhood of Oamaru. And, after some preliminary remarks, he continues as follows:—
"The part of the field on which the remains were found bears no traces of any physical disturbance—e.g. of earthquake, or flood, or hurricane—that would account for the sudden destruction of a flock or ‘mob’ of Moas. The Moa, when alive, carried in its crop—like our own hens—a quantity of stones to serve as a private coffee-mill for digestive grinding; stones which, being somewhat in proportion to the magnitude of the giant bird, form, when found in one place, a ‘heap’ of stones which are easily identified as a Moa heap, and nothing else. And in the present case the heap was here and there found in such relation to the bones of an individual bird as to show that the Moa must have died on that spot, and remained there quietly undisturbed. Further, the number of birds represented by the exhumed remains is so great that the living birds could not have stood together on the space of ground on which the remains were found lying. And there is not on any of the bones any trace of such violence as must have left its mark if the death of the birds had been caused by a Moa-hunting mankind. Finally, it does not appear that in this particular district there ever has been, at any traceable period of the physical history of the land, a forest vegetation, such as might suggest that the catastrophe was caused by fire.
"The question how to account for the slaughter is raised likewise by two previous finds of Moa bones. The first of these, at Glenmark, in Canterbury, was the most memorable, because, being the first, it made the deepest impression. The second great find, far inland, up the Molineux River, otherwise the Clutha, was beneath the diluvium that is now worked by the gold-digger. The spot must have been the site of a lagoon, at one point of which there was a spring. Round about this point there were found the remains of, it was reckoned, five hundred individual Moas. The bones were quietly laid there, with, in some cases, the ‘heap’ of digestive stones in situ along with the skeletons. And Mr. Booth, whose elaborate investigation of this case is recorded in the annual volume of The New Zealand Institute, suggested the theory that the climate of New Zealand was changing to a degree of cold intolerable to Moa nature; and that the birds, fleeing from its rigour, sought comfort in the spring of water, sheltering their featherless breast in it, and so dozing out of this troubled life. And in this new find the wonder comes back unmitigated, as a mystery unsolved. For here is no bog deep enough, as in the first instance, nor lagoon spring, as in the second, to account for that multitude of giant birds dying in one spot.
"Another curious puzzle is, on close inspection, found everywhere in the Moa bone discoveries. It is hardly possible to make sure that the bones of any one complete Moa skeleton all belong to the same individual I heard some one say the other day that it is not certain that any Moa in any earthly museum has all his own bones, and only his own.
“A main interest of such a find lies not in the power of supplying museums with specimens of what is rapidly disappearing from the face of the world, but in the possibility of finding species of Moa that have not hitherto been tabulated. Whether any new species have been brought to light on this occasion the experts will not say until there has been time to make a careful study of the bones, nor do they venture on any theory to account for there being so many individual birds dead in that one place, where there appears to be no room for the explanations offered in connection with previous great finds. The date of these birds appears to be earlier than that of the coming of the Maoris into New Zealand, say five or six hundred years ago, as the Maori memory appears to have in it no trace of feasting on these giant Moas, but celebrates the rat-hunt in its ancient heroic song. And your readers may picture their appearance by noticing the fact that one of the recently found bones must have belonged to a Moa fourteen feet high!”
Note.—For further information on this interesting subject, the reader is referred to a paper in Natural Science, October, 1892, by Mr. F. W. Hutton. In a valuable paper, read before the Royal Geographical Society by Mr. H. O. Forbes, March 13, 1893, the lecturer alluded to the important fact that bone belonging to big extinct struthious birds have been discovered in Patagonia. This is interesting news as bearing upon the theory of a former Antarctic continent connecting Australia and New Zealand with South Africa, and perhaps even with South America. After the lecture, to which we listened with great interest, the subject was discussed by Mr. Slater, Dr. Günther, and Dr. Henry Woodward. For ourselves we can see no great difficulty in accepting the theory that such a continent once existed, though it is out of harmony with the now rather fashionable theory of “the permanence of ocean basins”—a doctrine which seems to have been pressed too far.