WINDBALL.

Otago Witness, Issue 1905, 25 May 1888, Page 27

WINDBALL.

A GERMAN NATIONAL AMUSEMENT. The Germans have a curious, but on the whole, a desirable substitute for the robust English and American game of football. It is know as " wiudball," which term expresses the idea very well. On windy days the German children may be seen running at full spsed along the smooth, level country roads, chasing after a small, swiftly-moving object, which goes bounding and jumping along in a very excitable and animated manner. So swift is its movement that in a strong wind it will soon distance all pursuers, provided it is not stopped by some fence or similar object. If, however, some lucky urchin more fleet of foot, or possessed of a less degree of adipose tissue than is generally supposed to be the case with the average German boy, succeeds in capturing it and holding this apparently bewitched object long enough for the looker-on to examine it, he will see that it is nothing more than three pasteboard circles, placed together in a manner calculated to catch the wind. The circles are arranged in a manner (described below) so that they form right angles wherever they meet, and make an angle at the centre similar to the angle at the corner of a room formed by the ceiling meeting the two walls. This, it will be seen, is something on the plan of the sails of a windmill. Whenever the wiud blows sufficiently strong to cause the ball to rotate once it turns over, exposing another hollow surface, which in turn catches the wind, and thus it goes ou all the time, gaining impetus and speed. It is so formed that no matter into what position it may be blown by the wind, it is certain to present an open surface. The directions for making it are as follow: — Draw three circles 4in in diameter on stiff cardboard. In each circle draw two diameters in dotted lines at right angles to each other. Then at the ends of each diameter mark points exactly £in from the circumference of each circle. So far all three circles are alike. In one circle (to be known as No. 1) draw a continuous black line over one dotted diameter from one iin mark to the other, and on the other dotted diameter draw a black line from each- £iv mark to the circumference. In circle No. 2 draw black lines from the circumference to the Jin marks on both diameters. In No. 3 draw black lines on both diameters between the £in marks. The next step, when these lines have been drawn, is to cut out the circles.' Then with a sharp knife cut out all the black lines and leave the dotted lines uncut. To put the different parts together, fold circle No. 2 along one diameter, thrust it through the cut in No. 1, after which it may be carefully opened. This will be found rather difficult to do, and will require some skilful manipulating. When the slits finally are made to fit into one another the circles can be opened out at right angles to one another. No. 3 may then be slipped down over them and fitted into the edge slits ready to secure it. To produce good results the cutting and drawing must be very accurate.—" American Stationer."

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MUSEUM JOTTINGS. : t I. The Moa Relics. Our local museum, with its comparatively i unattractive contents, has been so completely overshadowed by the magnificent and varied collections which Canterbury owes to ■ the industry and enthusiasm of the late Sir Julius yon Haast, that it seems to be, very generally assumed to be hardly worth a visit. And the assumption is not altogether unfounded ; we have no pictures — save a portrait of Captain j Cook — no statuary, no pottery, no antiquities, no technological collection ; in other words none of the things which make a museum, generally attractive. But granting these deficiencies, and admitting once for all that the collection is almost exclusively one of natural history — geology and zoology, with a soupgon of ethnology—we have really no need to be ashamed of our mnseum, since the exhibits contained in it reach on the whole a fair general level of excellence, while it contains a few things of which the greatest museums in the world might be proud, and one or two which are almost priceless. We propose in this and in one or two future articles to call attention to some of the more interesting and valuable specimens, beginning with that specially New Zealand subject the moa, a creature which has done almost as much to make our colony celebrated as its gold or its depression. The moa first came into notice about the year 1839, when one of the early colonists, Dr Rule, took part of a thigh bone to Professor (now Sir Richard) Owen, telling him that it belonged to a great bird. Dr Rule appears to have known enough of anatomy to be quite sure of the character of the fragment; but he failed to convince Profes3or Owen, who assured him that it was part of an ox's thigh bone, and was only brought to see its true nature after a careful comparison with other specimens, when he perceived that a great zoological discovery had been made, and that a bird larger and heavier than an ostrich was found in New Zealand where nothing larger than a kiwi had hitherto been discovered. From the size of the bone and , from its hay- ! ing contained marrow and not air, Sir Richard Owen considered that the bird to which it be- ' longed was flightless and was allied to the ostrich, emeu, and cassowary: in this way he reconstructed the moa from a single fragment of ,bone. One may be allowed to regret that so distinguished a man did not acknowledge that he had had the " straight tip " from an educated ! medical man, and that he should have > persistently referred to Dr Rule as " an individual," or " the vendor," aB if he had been a person whose ignorant conjectures on the matter were unworthy of attention. The question was soon put beyond doubt by numerous specimens of all the principal bones being sent to England by the Hon. Walter Mantell, the Rev. W. Cotton, and several others, and subsequently by Sir Julius yon Haast, Professor Hutton, &c. Sir R. Owen was now able to establish the remarkable fact that there were some 15 or 16 distinct species of moa, all contemporaneous — a most unexpected result, since all the other great flightless birds inhabit each its own country or district. In the whole of Australia, for instance, there are only two species of emeu, and one of cassowary ; while no fewer .than seven species of moa have been found in one and the same swamp. The two most extensive finds of moa bones occurred when the Glenmark swamp, Canterbury, was investigated by Sir J. yon Haasfc, and the Hamilton swamp, Otago, by Professor Hutton and Mr Booth. These localities contained bones literally by the cartload, and from them all the principal museums in the world have been supplied. There was, however, one great disadvantage attaching to the skeletons thus obtained. In these swamps the bones of hundreds of individuals belonging to several distinct species were found intermingled, and although an experienced person could readily distinguish the chief bones of one species from those of another, it was quite impossible to be sure about the separate individuals, so that skeletons procured in this way were pretty sure to consist of " selections " from numerous moas. Fortunately, however, in several places, single skeletons, or parts of skeletons, have been found in such a position as to make it quite certain that all the bones belonged to a single individual. It stands to reason that an " individual" skeleton of this sort is of far greater value than a dozen " made-up" skeletons. It is therefore a matter for congratulation that there are in the Otago Museum no fewer than four individual skeletons — probably a greater number than any other museum can boast — and that two of them are known to be amongst the most perfect ever found. One of these was found by Mr A D. Bell in Shag Valley, and belongs to the species Dinornis robustus, the other is an example of D. crassus, and was found at Waitaki. It would seem that the only skeleton known to be more perfect than these two, is one of D. robustus, which was found at Tiger Hill, Manuherikia, in 1863, and is now in the York Museum, England. In our Shag Valley and Waitaki skeletons the skull, upper neck bones, and a few toe bones were imperfect or absent, and have been supplied from other specimens, but everything else is known to have belonged to a single bird. Less perfect than these two, but still of great value, are two other "individual" skeletonsone of D. robustus, found at Highley Hill, and deposited by Dr Hocken; the other, of I). casuarinus, was found beneath the site of the Botanical Gardens. The remaining skeletons in the museum are all made up from bones found at Hamilton; they belong to the species 2). elephantopus, D. gravis, J). didiformis, and D. struthioides. In the upper gallery are a few bones of B. ingens, and of D. curtus, so that out of 16 known species of moa nine are represented, three of them by individual skeletons. Anyone looking at these skeletonn cannot fail to be struck with the astonishing difference they present among themselves. For instance, Dinornis rohuslus is nearly 10ft high, and has a comparatively slender body and lone legs. Dinornis crassus, D. gravis, and D. depJiantopus, on the other hand, are only between 4ft and sft high, with wonderfully bulky "Dutch-built" bodies, and short, 6tout legs. Some of the leg bones are larger than those of a horse or cow. Then there is a species called D. parvus not represented in this museum, not much larger than a turkey, and D. cartus, of which a few bones are shown in the desk case at the south end of the upper gallery, could not have been more than 2§ft high. It was in recognition of these differences that Sir J. yon Haast proposed to divide the moas into two families, each containing two genera, thus going further than Sir R. Owen, who made two genera — one containing the tall slender moas, like D. robustus, the others the short, thick-set forms, like D. erassus. One of the differences upon which this separation was based had to do with the structure of the foot ; it was stated that the slender moas (genus Dinornis) had onlythree toes, like an emeu or a cassowary, while the short moas (genus Palaptcryx) had, in addition,

a short .hind toe, like a kiwi, or a domestic, fowlt In the new ' edition of . Professor Nicholson's ''Zoology," published last year, this point of the i presence or absence of the' little hind '.toe, or hallux, is made the basis of a division into two groups of the whole order of Satitae or ostrichlike birds; one group containing the ostrich, rhea, emeu, cassowary, and Dinornis (the Blender moas) ; the other the kiwi and Palaptei-yx (the stout moas. * • v •" < _ A walk through the museum would soon" convince anyone that this arrangement is quite .unsupported by the facts of the case. The Shag Valley skeleton .of Dinwnis robustus has both hind toes present, and- in a small case in the south-west corner of the upper gallery are three feet belonging to individual birds of the species. ingens and casuarinus, all with hind toes. In other words, our collections show, as Professor Hutton first pointed out,' that the hind toe is possessed by at least three of the species placed by Sir J. .yon Haast in a family distinguished by the absence of a hallux. In a large majority of the nioa .skeletons found the upper vertebrae of the neck and those of the short tail are wanting. We have nothing quite so perfect as the head and neck in the Wellington Museum, but in a desk case at the south end of the upper gallery are a complete set of upper neck vertebrae, and another of tail vertebra— both belonging to single birds. There are also nearly complete necks of individual specimens in the small upright case in the south-west corner of the same gallery. The desk case just mentioned contains many other important specimens. For instance, there ,is a skull, believed to be the meat perf eec in existence, having in connection with it the tongue bone and the bones of the larynx and trachea — two words which the recent European telegrams make it unnecessary to explain. Then there is a portion of the ring of small bones from the slerotic or outer coat of the eye. This speoimen is absolutely unique. There are also several very good lower jaws and portions of skulls ; and two specimens of the small rib-like shoulder bone — shown also in the Shag Valley skeleton on the ground floor ; this is seen to have no trace of a socket for the articulation of a wing, whence it is inferred that the moa was the only absolutely wingless bird known. In some species even the shoulder bone was absent. The same case contains an excellent footprint of the moa in soft sandstone from Poverty Bay, as well as casts of the eggs of three species and fragments of egg shell The eggs are the largest known except that of the extinct moalike bird of Madagascar, the JEpyornis. That the moa was a vegetarian is proved by some interesting specimens in the same case obtained by Mr F. Chapman from the Mackenzie country. It is a well-known fact that vegetable-feeding birds swallow stones to help their strong muscular gizzard in the grinding of their food. It frequently happens that heaps of pebbles are found along with moa skeletons — no .doubt deposited by the decay of the gizzard, One set, from the gizzard of a single bird, weighs over 41b, and contains between 300 and 400 Btones. Not far from these bulky contents of the moa's stomach are casts of its brain, from which it appears that tall birds are like tall houses — the upper stories the worst furnished. The brain of a 10ft moa was hardly larger than that of a turkey. One of the most interesting questions about the moa is that of the date of its extinction. Most people believe that these great birds lived until comparatively recent' times, while others have considered them as quite prehistoric — that, in fact, they were exterminated before the advent of the Maori. The latest writer on the subject, M. de Quatrefages, considers that they probably became extinct about a century ago. There is probably no collection in the world which pofsesseß so much valuable material bearing upon this question as the Otago University Museum. In the desk case so frequently mentioned there are specimens which would seem to indicate an cvti. more recent date, than that ! assigned by M. de Quatrefages. There are, in the first place, three frames containing feathers. Then there are two priceless specimens, one of a neck and one of a foot, with the greater part of the skin, tendons, &c. preserved. Other bones show fragments of dried flesh adhering. In a bottle of spirit is a piece of skin, which is quite soft and supple. Almost equally conclusive is a pelvis found not long ago at Alexandra by Master W. Allen, which has all the appearance of a fresh bone, the surface showing not the slightest signs of weathering. A horse's or cow's bone exposed to the sun and wind for twelve months would have a far more ancient appearance than , this specimen, which is certainly the most re-cent-looking moa bone we have ever seen. Finally, there are numerous specimens of broken and charred bones taken from Native cooking places and proving that these great birds were used as food by the Maoris. The probable appearance of a living moa and its size in relation to the kiwi is well shown in a small lithograph placed in the case, taken from a figure in Hochstetter's " New Zealand." Thus our local collection of moa relics probably contains a larger number of really valuable and even unique specimens than any other.