and their
remains exist in such abundance--in recent fluviatile deposits, in old
native cooking places, and even scattered on the surface of the
ground--that complete skeletons of several of them have been put together,
illustrating various periods of growth from the chick up to the adult bird.
Feathers have also been found attached to portions of the skin, as well as
the stones swallowed by the birds to assist digestion, and eggs, some
containing portions of the embryo bird; so that everything confirms the
statements of the Maoris--that their ancestors found these birds in
abundance on the islands, that they hunted them for food, and that they
finally exterminated them only a short time before the arrival of
Europeans.[122] Bones of Apteryx are also found fossil, but apparently of
the same species as the living birds. {478} How far back in geological time
these creatures or their ancestral types lived in New Zealand we have as
yet no evidence to show. Some specimens have been found under a
considerable depth of fluviatile deposits which may be of Quaternary or
even of Pliocene age; but this evidently affords us no approximation to the
time required for the origin and development of such highly peculiar
insular forms.

_Past Changes of New Zealand deduced from its Wingless Birds._--It has been
well observed by Captain Hutton, in his interesting paper already referred
to, that the occurrence of such a number of species of Struthious birds
living together in so small a country as New Zealand is altogether
unparalleled elsewhere on the globe. This is even more remarkable when we
consider that the species are not equally divided between the two islands,
for remains of no less than ten out of the eleven known species of Dinornis
have been found in a single swamp in the South Island, where also three of
the species of Apteryx occur. The New Zealand Struthiones, in fact, very
nearly equal in number those of all the rest of the world, and nowhere else
do more than three species occur in any one continent or island, while no
more than two ever occur in the same district. Thus, there appear to be two
closely allied species of ostriches inhabiting Africa and South-western
Asia respectively. South America has three species of Rhea, each in a
separate district. Australia has an eastern and a western variety of emu,
and a cassowary in the north; while eight other cassowaries are known from
the islands north of Australia--one from Cer