174 Transactions. — Zoology. 



quartz pebbles, and in one place more than a barrowload of 

 them. This heap must have weighed over a hundredweight at 

 least, and could only have resulted from the destruction of 

 numbers of birds crossing some unusually soft or treacherous 

 part of the swamp during a long series of years ; or they may 

 have been gathered together by flowing water, and deposited 

 in a hole at the bottom of some channel or pool on the 

 surface of the peat, and subsequently exposed by changes of 

 level and subaerial action. 



Near this great heap two curious observations were made : 

 one was, on cutting into the peat for a few inches we came 

 to a "pocket" of clean, sharp quartz-sand — about a pint, 

 just like sea-shore sand — with a few small pebbles in it. This 

 could not possibly have been deposited where we found it by 

 any natural physical agency. Mr. Chapman, I believe, met 

 with a similar small pocket of sand on the top of Maungatua, 

 on the south side of the Taieri Plain, at the height of about 

 3,000ft. 



The other find was the proximal end of a metatarsal bone 

 of a moa of medium size (possibly D. crassus), almost entirely 

 decalcified. This was the only fragment of bone which the 

 most rigorous search could find, and Mr. Chapman informed 

 me that on a previous occasion he had found a similar frag- 

 ment in the same condition. Now, I had always supposed 

 peat-swamps to be the happy hunting-grounds for the bone- 

 hunter, and was nmch disappointed at not finding any trace of 

 the birds which used all these gizzard-stones, and I constructed 

 several ingenious theories to account for the matter, some of 

 which fitted the facts delightfully ; but on testing the samples 

 of peat which I took home I found that ordinary litmus- 

 paper was immediately reddened when placed in contact with 

 the peat. 



Here, then, was the explanation of the mystery — the 

 strongly acid character of the decaying vegetable matter dis- 

 solved the bones entirely; and, instead of the peat-deposit of 

 Swampy Hill turning out either a Glenmark, Hamilton, or 

 Enfield, only the imperishable quartz pebbles contained in the 

 gizzard have remained to testify to the former abundance of 

 Dinornithidae in that part. 



On looking up the subject of peat, I find that Sir Charles 

 Lyell=>^ says, " The antlers of large and full-grown stags are 

 among the most common and conspicuous remains of animals 

 in peat. They are not horns which have been shed, for por- 

 tions of the skull are found attached, proving that the whole 

 animal perished. But as a general rule no remains are met 

 with belonging to extinct quadrupeds, such as the elephant, 



* " Principles of Geology," vol. ii., p. 505, tenth edition. 



