Page 7 Advertisements Column 4

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7145, 17 February 1930, Page 7

Nearly 2,000,000 gallons of petrol aro consumed daily in Great Britain,

MAORI NATURE NOTES

(Specially written for the “Manawatu Daily Times”) [Copyright J.H.S.]

OA (to climb). How may one write of the biggest bird in the world, dead or alive, in this small space? Competent authorities give the year in which it was last seen alive

M

as 1650. The familiar kiwi may safely be regarded as a moa in miniature, but a 12-foot moa would weigh at least 4001 b. Unlike any other bird, his bones were filled with marrow. What a feast for the meatless Maori did that abnormally developed leg provide! One perfect egg has been found; it was 27 inches round, and a number 7 hat was too small for its eggeup. There being no animals here to prey upon it, the wings, and even their trace in the skeleton, have disappeared. To disuse is to disinherit. Nowhere else on earth may we find a truly wingless bird. A giant leg bone only was Professor Owen’s key to its complete description, even to the hairy covering, true in every detail, as proven by later discoveries. His friends tried to prevent publication, thinking the world would confirm their belief that he had gone mad!