198 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDVSTRY. 



suit. Numerous localities have been discovered where the 

 bones of the moa remain in immense profusion, all more or 

 less mutilated, split, or charred, as the result of human agen- 

 cy, and usually accompanied by native implements of stone, 

 some of which are of great perfection of finish. In addition, 

 however, to the destruction of these birds by the natives, an- 

 other cause that tended to their extermination has doubtless 

 come into play, namely, that of the forest fires that so fre- 

 quently occur in New Zealand and elsewhere. On numerous 

 occasions, masses of moa bones, belonging to large numbers 

 of skeletons, have been found in localities where -the birds 

 seemed to have been hemmed in so as to be unable to escape. 

 These places consist mainly of spurs of the hills, jutting to a 

 considerable distance out into the lakes, where it is probable 

 the birds congregated to escape the flames, which, by ap- 

 proaching near them, destroyed them by suffocation, in con- 

 sequence of their unwillingness to enter the water. Dr. Hec- 

 tor himself found at the southwest extremity of a triangular 

 plain, by the side of the Wakatipu Lake, no less than thirty- 

 seven of such skeleton heaps, situated precisely as just indi- 

 cated. 12 A, July 6, 188. 



DISCOVERY OF FOOT-PRINTS OF THE MOA. 



It is announced in Nature that foot-prints of the moa have 

 lately been detected in a new district in the province of 

 Auckland, near the settlement of Gisborne, Poverty Bay. 

 The slabs in which the impressions were found were about 

 five feet below a deposit of salt and alluvium, which had been 

 washed away by the action of the water, leaving visible the 

 stone in which the foot-prints were found very plainly in- 

 dented, and following each other in regular succession. The 

 length of the foot-mark, from the heel to the tip of the centre 

 toe, was nearly eight inches ; the length of the stride twenty 

 inches from heel to heel. 12 A, August 24,324. 



HABIT OF HORNED TOAD. 



At the January meeting of the Zoological Society in Lon- 

 don, a communication was presented from Mr. John Wallace 

 upon a hitherto unobserved peculiarity of the horned toad, or 

 Phrynosoma, of California, This animal, according to his 

 statement, under certain circumstances (apparently as a mode 



