166 Transactions. — Zoology. 



With reference to the first : Mr. J. Buchanan, who accom- 

 panied the first surveying-party into the interior of Otago, in 

 1856, says that in the upland district east of the Lammerlaw 

 Eange, between 2,000ft. and 4,000ft. above the sea, large leg- 

 bones of moas were strewn on the surface in great profu- 

 sion, and they were in very perfect preservation, most of 

 them being quite hard, except where they had been roasted 

 by grass-fires. In the Manuherikia Valley no bones were 

 found on the level terraces, perhaps on account of the late 

 fires ; but they were abundant in the scrub on the flats 

 which were liable to be flooded by the rivers." The observa- 

 tions of Mr. Vincent Pyke (1861) and of Sir James Hector 

 (1862) I have already quoted, but I may here add that Sir 

 James Hector says that at the south-west extremity of a 

 triangular plain by the side of Lake Wakatipu, in 1862, he 

 counted thirty-seven of such distinct skeleton-heaps. t Mr. 

 Murison (1861) does not mention surface bones. He says, 

 " Scarcely a hole could be dug without some of these remains 

 being exposed ; and, when the land came to be cultivated, 

 bones and fragments of eggshells in great number were laid 

 bare by the plough. "| The Maori cooking-places were also 

 covered by 6in. of silt, and were not discovered until 1865. 

 But all these bones disappeared very rapidly. During the 

 summers of 1873-74 and 1874-75 I rode over the whole of the 

 interior of Otago, making a geological survey, and I never saw 

 moa-bones lying on the surface, except where they had been 

 ploughed or dug up, although they were not Uncommon in 

 the river alluvia. The same has apparently occurred in 

 Canterbury. Mr. Boys says that he has seen (date unknown) 

 quantities of moa-bones lying on the surface of the ground on 

 the Waipara Plains. § While Sir Julius von Haast, who com- 

 menced his explorations in Canterbury in 1861, and visited the 

 Waipara in 1866-67, says, " I must confess that I have never 

 observed any [moa-bones] in such positions [i.e., on the ground 

 among the grass on the plains, or between rocks and debris in 

 the mountains] , except when it could be easily proved that they 

 had been washed out either by heavy freshes from older 

 deposits in cliffs along river-beds, or by the disappearance of the 

 luxuriant virgin vegetation, consisting of high grass or bushes, 

 the soil having been laid bare, so that its upper j)ortion would 

 speedily be washed away by rain-water. "|| And a little 

 further on he says that none are found on the surface now 



* Trans. N.Z, Inst., vol. v., pp. 416 and 417. 

 t Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 118. 

 + Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 121, 

 § Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 400. 

 II Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 70. 



