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THE

YOUTHS' MAGAZINE;

OR,

EVANGELICAL MISCELLANY.

OCTOBER, 1852.

GIGANTIC BIRD.

"

DR. GIDEON A. MANTELL, whose name as a geologist is of universal celebrity, was the first who noticed the discovery, in New Zealand, of a gigantic fossil bird, named by him the Dinornis, or Moa. Mr. Walter Mantell, his son, being resident in that country, has transmitted a large variety of specimens, from which a perfect idea may be obtained of this now-extinct creature.

The bones gathered from the North Island were from a sand-bed on the west coast, between Wanganui and Waimate, near the embouchure of a small river, called Waingongoro.

Mr. Mantell states that between Tukikau and Ohawetokotoko is a wide flat of undulated sand, about two hundred yards across, the surface of which, on his first visit, was covered with the bones of men, moas, seals, &c., which had been overhauled by the Rev. R. Taylor. Upon

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the same level Mr. Mantell had some deep openings made at the base of the ancient cliffs, under the Pa, or village Ohawetokotoko, and then came to the bone deposit. The bones were generally perfect in shape, but so soft, that, when grasped strongly, they became a plastic clay.

"Unfortunately," says Mr. Mantell, "the natives soon caught sight of my operations, and came down in shoals, trampling on the bones I had carefully extracted and laid out to dry. The natives affirm that this sand flat to Rangatapu was one of the places first dwelt upon by their ancestors; and this seems not unlikely, for, in digging in various places, I found circular beds of ashes, and charcoal, and bones, very ancient, and such as are generally left by the native fires that have been long lighted in the same place. Fragments of obsidian, native flint, two fishing-line stones, and a whalebone meri were also dug up. The natives told me, and their assertion was corroborated by the appearance of the place, that within their memory the entire area was covered by drift-sand; in fact, the bones always seem to be imbedded on or beneath an old surface-level. Columns of vertebræ, when uncovered, were lying in situ and perfect, with, in rare instances, skull and pelvis; but to preserve these precious relies was impossible while beset with the hordes of Maoris, and I could not drive or bribe them away. The largest femur, tibia, and fibula were lying in their natural connexion, the leg slightly bent at the knee. A chain of vertebræ of the largest size was discovered near them, and I doubt not the whole belonged to the same colossal bird. Mixed with the bones, but exceedingly rare, were the fragments of eggshells.

In coming down from Ugamotu I discovered a few more remains of eggs: one fragment is four inches long, and gives a good chord by which to estimate the size of the original. As a rough guess, I may say that a common hat would make a good egg-cup for it. And, if native traditions are worthy of credit, the ladies have cause to mourn the extinction of the Moa. The long feathers of its crest were prized by their remote ancestors above all other ornaments. Those of the white crane, which now bear the highest value, are mere pigeons' feathers in comparison."

The last collection received from Mr. Walter Mantell was chiefly obtained from a morass, or turbary deposit, of small extent, situated in a little bay near Waikonaite, about twenty miles to the north of the Scotch settlement of Otago. This swamp is covered by the sea, except at low water, and is rapidly wasting away. It is a fœtid dark brown mass, largely composed of the fibres of the New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax;) and, from the state in which the bones occur, suggests the inference that many of the birds were mired in the morass, in like manner as the gigantic extinct Irish elk in the bogs of Ireland, and the mastodons and mammoths in Big-bone Lick, in America: the bones, too, are in a similar state of preservation.

The most extraordinary relics obtained from this spot were the entire series of bones of the shanks and feet (twenty-six in number) of the same individual three-toed bird. The upper

part of the shank-bones was alone visible above the soil upon the retiring of the tide, standing erect, one leg being three feet in advance of the other. These were carefully dug up, and numbered in their natural sequence on the spot: they have been put together since they were received by Dr. Mantell. They are unquestionably the most extraordinary fossil relics of this kind ever brought to light.

In the upper corner of our engraving is a sketch of one of these legs. The toes present the characteristic number of bones observable in birds: thus, the inner toe has three bones; middle, four; the outer toe, five: had there been a hinder toe, it would have consisted of but two bones. The foot, when furnished with the cartilages, claws, &c., must have been 16 inches long, and 18 inches wide; the height of the bird to which it belonged was probably about 10 feet. But there are several bones of the thich, leg, &c,, that indicate greater proportions, and an altitude of 12 or even 14 feet.

Our sketch of the outline of the Dinornis or Moa will serve to convey some idea of the colossal magnitude of this extinct wingless race of bipeds. The figures of an ostrich and of a native chief are introduced as a scale of comparison.

TWO WAYS OF TELLING A STORY.

WHO is this? A careless little midshipman, idling about in a great city, with his pockets full of money.

He is waiting for the coach: it comes up presently, and he gets on the top of it, and begins to look about him.

They soon leave the chimney pots behind them, his eyes wander with delight over the harvest fields, he smells the honeysuckle in the hedge row, and he wishes he was down among the hazel bushes that he might strip them of the milky nuts: then he sees a great wain piled up with barley, and he wishes he was seated on the top of it: then they go through a little wood, and he likes to see the chequered shadows of the trees, lying across the white road; and then a squirrel runs up a bough, and he cannot forbear to whoop and halloo, though he cannot chase it to its nest.

The other passengers are delighted with his simplicity and childlike glee; and they encourage him to talk to them about the sea and ships, especially Her Majesty's ship, wherein he has the honor to sail. In the jargon of the sea, he describes her many perfections, and enlarges on her peculiar advantages: he then confides to them how a certain middy, having been ordered to the mast-head as a punishment, had seen, while sitting on the top-mast cross-trees, something uncommonly like the sea serpent; but finding this hint received with incredulous smiles, he begins to tell them how he hopes that, some day, he shall be promoted to have charge of the poop. The passengers hope he will have that honor: they have no doubt he deserves it. His cheeks flush with pleasure to hear them say so, and he little thinks that they have no notion in what "that honor" may happen to consist.

The coach stops: the little midshipman, with his hands in his pockets, sits rattling his money and singing. There is a poor woman standing by the door of the village inn; she looks careworn, and well she may, for in the spring her husband went up to London to seek for work. He got work, and she was expecting soon to join him there, when alas, a fellow-workman wrote her word how he had met with an accident, how he was very bad and wanted his wife to come and nurse him. But she has two young children, and is destitute; she must walk up all

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