Hamilton. — On Moa Gizzard-stones. 173 



vegetation consists of small and inconspicuous plants, with 

 occasional patches of manuka. In some places a space of 

 ground of nearly an acre is completely bare, and by the 

 sections exposed is seen to be solid vegetable peat, which in 

 many places is certainly of a depth of 10ft., and probably 

 even 20ft. The cause of these bare patches, devoid of any 

 surface vegetation, may be either that the water of a pond or 

 lagoon has been drained away, or that fire has burned a 

 certain part away in the dry seasons ; but, whatever the 

 cause, on these barren areas are seen heaps of unmistakable 

 gizzard-stones of pure-white quartz. In the majority of cases 

 it is not possible to isolate absolutely the total contents of one 

 gizzard, but we were fortunate enough to find at least two 

 examples which would convince even the most sceptical as 

 to the real character of the heaps more or less scattered on 

 the ground. 



The first of these was just being exposed by the action 

 of the weather from underneath a clump of manuka, and 

 only a few of the larger stones were visible. On digging into 

 the peat we noticed that, although the interstices between 

 the stones were filled up with closely-interlaced vegetable 

 fibres, similar in substance to the rest of the peaty soil, yet it 

 was of a decidedly yellow colour, in contrast to the brown of 

 the peat. The stones were found to be closely compacted 

 together in a ball-shaped mass, and were of all sizes, from 

 those less than a pea to those larger than a pigeon's egg. We 

 carefully cut out this mass, which was as large as a man's 

 head, and could find no stones in the peat immediately sur- 

 rounding the collection. The stones were carefully washed 

 out and dried, and tied up in a separate bundle, and on weigh- 

 ing them afterwards they were found to turn the scale at 4^1b. 

 The second example was on lower ground close to a large 

 lagoon, and only a few small stones were visible. Packed 

 in between the stones was the same comminuted vegetable 

 matter of a much lighter colour than the surrounding peat. 

 This mass we removed as carefully as possible and tied it up 

 separately. I have picked out most of the stones, and dried 

 and examined the vegetable matter in which the stones are 

 mibedded and interwoven, and I find it to consist of vast 

 numbers of seeds of Leuco2)0(jon a,nd CojJrosmas (^), and short 

 twigs and branches which cannot be well identified. Some of 

 the material I have forwarded to Mr. T. Kirk for examina- 

 tion and identification. 



The number of stones in these two gizzards must far 

 exceed those described by Mr. Chapman in his paper. In the 

 second example the weight of the stones was just six pounds. 

 Still continuing our walk over the bleak and barren moor- 

 land, we saw unnumbered scattered heaps of these white- 



