152 Transactions. — Zoology. 



account for the bones in the Te Aute Swamp, because most of 

 the larger beg-bones were found in a vertical position, the 

 tibia and metatarsus often iu their relative places ; and the 

 same, to some extent, was the case at Waikouaiti/''- But the 

 position of the bones at Glenmark and Hamilton was very 

 different, the leg-bones lying in all directions, and just as often 

 upside down as in any other position.! It is also difficult 

 to account by this theory for the swamping of tuataras, 

 Cnemiornis, Harpagornis, the kiwi, and still smaller flying birds, 

 which have been found in the swamps with the moa-bones. 

 Sir J. von Haast thought that the first hypothesis might 

 account for the occurrence of bones in the main swamp at 

 Glenmark ; but the older peat-beds, like those at Hamilton, 

 are not deep enough to swamp a moa, and the bones go to the 

 very top of the bed. 



At Hamilton, and also at Glenmark, there is a coiisiderable 

 amount of evidence in favour of the second hypothesis, that 

 the bones were washed in by floods ; but, as none of the bones 

 are waterworn, and the peat always contains a large number 

 of moa-stones, whole birds in the flesh must have been washed 

 in, and not single bones. At Glenmark, wherever a small 

 watercourse came in from the surrounding hills, a network of 

 drift timber, often of large size, with numerous moa-bones, 

 was always found round its mouth. In the swamp the 

 bones occurred in "nests" near clay banks, while in other 

 places there were no bones. Dr. Haast remarks that " the 

 carcases or portions of birds had evidently been washed here 

 against the banks, and deposited in considerable quantities." J 

 At Hamilton very little timber was found, probably because it 

 had all decayed into peat, but stones up to lib. and 21b. oc- 

 curred, and one piece of rock weighing between 101b. and 121b. 

 was found in the clay near the bones. As the heaviest moa- 

 stone does not weigh much more than 2oz., these large 

 stones must have been entangled in tree-roots which had been 

 washed into the swamp by floods. § The peat-bed at 

 Hamilton contained numbers of fresh-water shells, and it pro- 

 bably formed the lowest portion of a former lake, into which 

 the materials brought down by floods from the surrounding 

 hills collected. 



We find corroborative evidence of this in the alluvial or 

 old lacustrine deposits all round the plains of central Otago, 

 for these always contain numerous bones wherever a stream 

 enters them from the hills. Mr. Vincent Pyke — a very early 



* Mantell, " Petrifactions and their Teachings," p. 98, 

 t Booth, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. vii., p. 128. 

 X " Geology of Canterbury and Westland," p. 446. 

 g Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc, vol. xli., p. 213. 



