Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1901 — Rarest Egg the World. [ARTICLE]

Rarest Egg the World.

The Octago University Museum at Dunedin, New Zealand, possesses the only complete egg of the onormous bird, the moa, which Is now extinct, but which at one time Inhabited New Zealand in great numbers. It is the rarest egg in the world. The larger museums of various countries possess skeletons of the bird, but until recently no complete egg had ever been discovered. From time to time bits of shells and parts of eggs were found, but no one had ever seen or heard of a complete egg. In parts of New Zealand dredging for gold is very largely undertaken, and the dredges in many places leave tne streams and cut into the bank. In one of these dredges, which was cutting Into a bank of auriferous sand and shingle, a workman noticed a big yellow lump, which he took to a turtle floating on the surface of the water. He found that supposed turnip was a large egg. It had apparently been burled for ages, and the contents had entirely dried up, but experts decided that It was an egg of the moa, the only complete one In the world. The bird when full grown was about fourteen feet In height, but none have been seen alive since about the middle of the seventeenth century.