Extinct birds : $b An attempt to unite in one volume a short account of those birds which have become extinct in historical timesRothschild, Lionel Walter Rothschild, Baron
Science
Extinct birds : $b An attempt to unite in one volume a short account of those birds which have become extinct in historical times
Rothschild, Lionel Walter Rothschild, Baron
Birds; Extinct birds
Feathers have been found at Clutha River, near Roxburgh, and also in caves
near Queenstown. Those from Clutha are mostly dark, being black with white
tips; while the Queenstown ones resemble feathers of _Apteryx australis_ in
colours. Professor Owen has shown that _Megalapteryx huttoni_ was feathered
down to the toes, and in the plate I have represented it clothed with
feathers similar to the Clutha ones, which I believe belong to this
species. The Moas at one time must have been extraordinarily numerous, both
in numbers and species, and they varied in height from 2½ feet to 12 feet.
Professor Parker has shown that some of the species had crests of long
feathers on the head, and, as some adult skulls of the same forms show no
signs of this, he infers that the males alone had this appendage. There has
been much discussion as to the time when the Moas became extinct, and we
know for certain that the two species, _Dinornis maximus_ and
_Anomalopteryx antiquus_, belong to a much earlier geological epoch than
the bulk of the other species. It would be too lengthy for my purpose to go
into the arguments, but we can, by the study of the "_kitchen middens_" of
Maoris and their traditions, fairly adduce that the Maoris arrived in the
North Island some 600 years ago, that they hunted Moas, and that they
exterminated them about 100 to 150 years after their arrival. In the South,
or rather Central, Island, the Maoris appear to have arrived about 100
years later, and to have exterminated the Moas about 350 years ago. It is
only fair to say, however, that Monsieur de Quatrefages adduces evidence in
his paper which goes far to prove that Moas existed down to the end of the
18th or even beginning of the 19th century in those parts of the Middle
Island not, or scantily, inhabited by Maoris.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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