90 Rev. W. Colenso on some enormous Fossil Bones 



mount lord of the creation, that it should have ceased to be ? 

 Man, the only antagonist at all able to cope with it, we have 

 already shown as being entirely ignorant of its habits, use, and 

 manner of capture, as well as utterly unable to assign any 

 reason why it should have thus perished. 



The period of time then in which I venture to conceive it 

 most probable the Moa existed, was certainly either antecedent 

 or coetaneous to the peopling of these islands by the present race 

 of New Zealanders. 



But we will proceed, and endeavour to ascertain (as we pro- 

 posed in the second place to do) to what order or family is it 

 likely that the Moa belongs ? In making this inquiry, we have 

 little to assist us but the bones before us ; from an attentive con- 

 sideration of which we are necessarily led to conclude that the 

 animal must have been of large size and great strength ; and, from 

 the shortness of the tarsus (when compared with the length of 

 the tibia) j we also perceive it to have been short-legged. From 

 its size, we shall naturally be led to seek for its affinities among 

 either the Raptorial or Rasorial orders ; but from its tarsi pos- 

 sessing only articulations for three toes, we are at once precluded 

 from supposing that it belonged to the former order ; to which 

 we may also add, first, the (so to speak) evidence of negation, of 

 not a single specimen or fragment of a wing-bone having yet 

 been found ; and, secondly, the judicious observation of Cuvier (in 

 reference to the family of Strut hionidce), that it would be morally 

 impossible to fit such heavy bodies with wings sufficient to enable 

 them to fly*. In the latter, however (the Gallinaceous or Ra • 

 sorial order), we have the largest and stoutest birds known; 

 these too are terrestrial in their habits, some exclusively so, and 

 very often possess only three toes. It is true, that in general the 

 different known members of the family containing the largest 

 birds have their tarsi long, (whereas those of the Moa, as we 

 have already seen, are short,) yet to this we have exceptions in 

 the Dodo (alas ! no more) and the Apteryx. And I think it 

 is highly worthy of notice, that the latter, the only known exist- 

 ing genus of the family possessing short tarsi, is entirely con- 

 fined to these islands. 



From a conviction, then, that it is in this order only that the 

 affinities of the Moa are to be sought with any prospect of sue- 



* The Baron's words are, " It appears as if all the muscular power which 

 is at the command of nature would he insufficient to move such immense 

 wings as would be required to support their massive bodies in the air." — 

 ' Regne Animal,' Class Aves, ord. 5. fam. 1. — If such were the spontaneous 

 remarks made by that illustrious naturalist on contemplating the size of the 

 known members of that family, what would he not have said, had he but 

 lived to examine the colossal structure of the Moa ! 



