360 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



on the surface, sometimes in caves ; generally, however, in 

 the open and low scrub, and not in the region occupied now 

 or formerly by the primeval forests. In the subalpine por- 

 tion of the south of jSTew Zealand, covered only with a slight 

 vegetation, large quantities of well-preserved moa remains 

 have been recently found, associated with relics of the na- 

 tives, proving still more conclusively than heretofore that 

 they served as food to the inhabitants, and that they were 

 a favorite object of pursuit. 



The occurrence of large numbers of the bones together is 

 thought to be due to the fact that the animals were crowd- 

 ed by the firing of the brush by the Maoris. They are also 

 discovered in the swamps and peat bogs in almost all the 

 valleys leading to the coast. One of these was at Glen- 

 mark, where the remains of a terrace, at a higher level, had 

 been cut through by a stream, leaving -a large deposit on 

 the shoulders of the hills on both sides. Here great num- 

 bers of bones were found without any Maori implements, in- 

 dicating as many as 1700 individuals that had either been 

 carried down and smothered in the floods or had died nat- 

 urally and been carried down by the water. Similar de- 

 posits occurred in caves and in bogs on the coast exposed 

 below high-water mark, showing that there had been com- 

 paratively modern submersion ; but there were no marine 

 deposits above. 



These bones were also found wherever the country was 

 favorable for the Maori camps, on the sheltered grassy plots, 

 or among the neighboring sand-hills. Here they were asso- 

 ciated with the cooking hollows and with stone implements 

 similar to those now used by the aborigines. 



In caves the moa bones were found resting on the stalac- 

 titic shelves, and probably came there by falling through the 

 upper chasms, or by being washed in by the water, as is now 

 the case with the remains of the sheep. The earliest traces 

 of the moa bones were at Poverty Bay, in the form of foot- 

 marks, in a soft pumice sandstone six or eight inches from 

 the surface. Dr. Hector does not consider the moa to be of 

 the tertiary age, the supposed bones from such deposits, in 

 his opinion, belonging to a gigantic extinct penguin. 



