Almost Perfect Mod Eggs Discovered.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 72, 25 March 1931, Page 6

Almost Perfect Mod Eggs Discovered.

Nature Notes

By

James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.

FRAGMENTS of moas’ egg-shells have been found in abundance. From several hundreds of fragments found at Awamoa, near Oamaru, about a dozen eggs were reconstructed. An egg, almost perfect, was found forty, four years ago at Cromwell, Otago. It was nine inches long and six inches broad. It was in sand about two feet below the surface, and in it there were bones of an embryo chick.

Another egg, more nearly perfect, was found seventy-two years ago at Kaikoura, with the skeleton of a Maori. That egg was ten inches long and seven inches and a half broad. It was sold in London for £l2O. Most of the fragments of shell are white, or were stained brown with the earth; but on the banks of the Kawarau River, Queenstown, fragments were found of a pale green colour. Some species of moas evidently laid white eggs; other species laid pale green eggs. These colours are favoured by the moas* diminutive relatives, the kiwis. While most species of kiwis lay white eggs, one species favours green. The illustration shows a moa, an ostrich, and a kiwi, with the relative sizes of their eggs. Relative to the size of the body, the kiwi’s is much the largest.