142 Transactions. — Zoology. 



formed, and undoubtedly they must be referred to the Pleisto- 

 cene. Bones have been found at Motunau, in clay and lignite, 

 which Sir J. Hector and Mr. A. McKay consider to be early 

 Pleistocene, and of the same age as the oldest bones at Glen- 

 mark. These beds were covered by 10ft. to 60ft. of alluvial de- 

 posits. Mr. McKay has also collected broken moa-bones and 

 fragments of moa egg-shell from the Pleistocene beds at Gore 

 Bay. These beds form a series of angular gravels and silts, 

 with marine shells in the lower portion, passing upwards into 

 rounded gravels, clays, and loam. The moa-bones were ob- 

 tained from about the middle of the formation.''' Moa-bones 

 also occur in the loess which wraps round Banks Peninsula 

 and covers the low hills at Timaru and Oamaru,i as well as 

 in the higher alluvia of the rivers. 



A few bones are reported by Dr. Haast from the ancient 

 moraines in Canterbury and Otago,| which are probably of 

 Pliocene age. Near Napier moa-bones have been found by 

 Mr. Aug. Hamilton associated with newer Pliocene marine 

 shells ;§ and the footprints discovered by Mr. D. Millar in the 

 sandstone at Gisbornejl are also probably newer Pliocene. 

 Mr. S. H. Drew has found bird-bones, prolaably belonging to 

 the moa, in the Pliocene brown sands near Kai-iwi, between 

 Wanganui and the mouth of the Waitotara.'i Undoubted 

 moa remains have been found by Mr. F. W. Stubbs and Mr. 

 Miller in a bed of clay at Timaru, which overlies gravel and 

 underlies a lava-stream ; and with them was associated a 

 femur supposed by Mr. H. 0. Forbes to belong to the living 

 Ai^teryx azistralis. '■'-■■'- These lavas have hitherto been con- 

 sidered as Miocene, or even Eocene, in age. They can be 

 traced for about twelve miles in a westerly direction, gradually 

 rising until they form the summit of Mount Horrible (1,138ft.) ; 

 and liere they end abruptly in a precipice overlooking the 

 valley of the Pareora Eiver. Below the lava-streams, and 

 separated from them by a thickness of 300ft. or dOOft. of 

 sandy and tufaceous beds, are older lava-streams, which on 

 the south-west side of Mount Horrible lie on limestone of 

 Oligocene age. In 1865 Sir J. von Haast thought that certain 

 beds, with marine fossils belonging to the Pareora series 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xiv., pp. 410 and 540 ; Rep. Geol. ExpL, 1882, 

 p. 74. 



t Hutton, " Geology of Otago " (1875), pp. 71, 72. 



+ Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc, vol. xxi., p. 134 ; Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., 

 p. 68 ; Geol. Canterbury, pp. 380 and 437. 



§ Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxi., p. 312. 



II Williams, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 122; Gillies, I.e., p. 127; 

 Owen, Ext. Birds of N.Z., p. 451, pi. cxvi. 



1i Park, Rep. Geol. ExpL, 1886-87, p. 63. 



** Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxiii., p. 307. 



