HuTTON. — 0)1 the Moas of New Zealand. 167 



(1871). In 1884 Mr. F. E. Chapman found the remains of 

 nine birds lying on the surface near Lake Tekapo, each with 

 its gizzard-stones, and one with tracheal rings ; but he says 

 that these skeletons had been covered with sand, and lately 

 exposed by the wind." But bones lying on the surface are 

 not confined to the South Island. According to Dr. von 

 Hochstetter, many years ago numbers of moa-bones were 

 found on the surface near Lake Tarawera, after the forest had 

 been burnt. f Sir James Hector found bones on the surface 

 in the Eaukawa Bush, Hawke's Bay,]: and gizzard-stones have 

 been found with bones in the same district. § 



No doubt many of the surface bones seen by the earlier 

 settlers had been washed out of alluvial beds and brought 

 down to the plains by floods ; but this will not account for 

 the more or less complete skeletons, which must have decayed 

 where they were found. Some of these may have been buried 

 in sand for many years and afterwards exposed by the wind, 

 as was the case with those seen by Mr. Chapman. Others 

 may have been covered by dense vegetation, and so protected 

 from the sun, which destroys bones rapidly when they are 

 exposed to its direct rays. But it is, no doubt, difficult to ac- 

 count satisfactorily for all the statements made. One thing 

 however, is clear. If all the bones that were lying on the sur- 

 face in Otago in 1861 disappeared in fifteen years, either some 

 great change must have taken place in the district during the 

 interval, or else none of the surface bones of 1861 were more 

 than fifteen years old. In the latter case we must suppose 

 that moas were living in large numbers in that district in 1846, 

 three years before the settlement of Otago, although not a 

 single bird was found alive by the first explorers. This is 

 incredible, and we must necessarily fall back on the first sug- 

 gestion, and account for the disappearance of the bones by the 

 constant burning of the scrub by Europeans, in which case the 

 surface bones do not prove the late existence of the moa in 

 the district where they were found. 



But it is in the South Island only that bones with dried 

 skin and ligaments have been found. In January, 1864, the 

 specimen of D. potens now in the York Museum was found 

 at Tiger Hill, in the Manuherikia Valley ; and, although buried 

 under 14ft. of sand, some portions of the skin and ligaments 

 still remained. II In 1871 Mr. W. A. Low found a piece of 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xvii., p. 175. 

 t " New Zealand," p. 64. 

 + Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxi., p. 318. 

 § Hamilton, I.e., vol. xxi., p. 319. 



li Hector, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1865, p. 751 ; AUis, Proc. Linn. Soc, 1864; 

 p. 50 ; Owen, Ext. Birds of N.Z., p. 248, as D. robustus. 



