Field. — On Moa Bemains. 559 



Waikanae, in the course of six months. I ascertained sub- 

 sequently that the tibi» of my bird had been picked up by 

 my second son, who has sent them to me, so that I have 

 now the nearly complete skeleton. In the case of the bones 

 found by myself, their position indicated that the bird had 

 crouched down, with its face towards the west, and had died 

 and been buried in that position. The Waikanae Maoris, 

 however, say that their fathers, up to within the last fifty or 

 sixty years, used to catch young moas and bring them up as 

 pets. If this was so, it seems very likely that the bird whose 

 remains I found may have been one of these pets, and may have 

 been actually interred by its owners. A Maori mode of inter- 

 ment was to place the body in front of an advancing sandhill, 

 and shovel down some of the sand to cover it, leaving the winds 

 to increase the depth of sand over the corpse. The position 

 of the upper bones of the legs showed clearly that the bird had 

 been covered up by sand without falling over on to its side, 

 and this looks as if it had been purposely interred. The posi- 

 tion of the lower leg-bones and of the toe-bones also corre- 

 sponded with that which they would have occupied if this 

 were the case. It was evident, from their relative position, 

 that the bones had never been exposed, until lately, since they 

 were first covered by the sand ; yet within about 6ft. of them, 

 and at a slightly lower level, I picked up on the 9th instant . 

 a hoop-iron adze 3^in. long by l^in. broad. I am quite certain 

 that this tool was still buried in the sand last year, or I 

 should have seen and secured it, and probably it had not 

 become visible even when the finder of the tibiae picked them, 

 up, or he would have seen and taken it too. My son would 

 have been sure to do so. This seems to make it certain that 

 the bird was alive after Captain Cook anchored in Queen 

 Charlotte Sound — or how should such a tool be buried at the 

 same level as the bird's leg-bones? — and would even point to a 

 more recent date, when iron adzes became so common as to be 

 dropped about heedlessly. The lower leg-bones are 15Jin. 

 long, 5Jin. in circumference at the smallest part, and 4fin. 

 across the toe-processes; and the tibiae 27in. long by 5fin. at 

 the smallest part. The spot where the bones were found was 

 close to an old Maori burial-place, where, a few years ago, 

 there were human skulls and bones lying about pretty plenti- 

 fully, owing to the sand having drifted off them. 



P. S.— 24th February, 1892.— As Mr. Drew knew that I 

 should be sure to go to Waikanae during my present visit to 

 Wellington, he asked me to examine the spot where he ob- 

 tained his moa-bones, and bring him any others that migiit 

 be now exposed. I accordingly visited the spot on Monday, 

 and found it to be an old kitchen-midden, which was being 

 exposed by the drifting-away of the sand. The bones, of 



