HuTTON. — On the Moas of Neiv Zealand. 151 



the coast which have preserved to us the relics of the ancient 

 moa-hunters. But considerable change must have taken place 

 in the moas between the time of the formation of Cook Strait 

 and the deposition of the Motunau beds, because out of the 

 eight species obtained from there only one is found in the 

 North Island, and out of the whole twenty-five Pleistocene 

 species only four are common to both Islands. We must there- 

 fore suppose that the other twenty-one species are of later 

 origin. If, then, the Motunau beds are Pleistocene, we must 

 put the formation of Cook Strait back into the Pliocene. It is 

 also evident that the genera Dinornis, Tylopteryx, PalajJteryx, 

 Anomalo2)teryx, Mesoi^teryx, and Syornis had all been difi'er- 

 entiated before the formation of Cook Strait, for their remains 

 are found in both Islands, while the genera Ccla and Eury- 

 ajiteryx may have come into existence at a later date. This 

 great differentiation implies a long interval of time, and it 

 probably took place during the isolation of the species in the 

 Oligocene and Miocene periods, so that we again arrive at the 

 conclusion that the ancestors of the moas inhabited New Zea- 

 land during the Eocene period. It should be remembered that 

 the Eocene includes a duration of time probably equal to the 

 Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene together. 



In the Pliocene period the moas must have flourished 

 greatly and covered the land. Euryaptcryx had its head- 

 quarters in Otago, Syornis in Canterbury, Mesopteryx in both 

 Otago and Canterbury. Anomalopteryx and Palapteryx were 

 most common in Nelson and Wellington, Dinornis in Hawke's 

 Bay, and Cela in Hawke's Bay and in Auckland. 



But it would seem that in the Pleistocene period the moas 

 suffered great mortality in the South Island, for how else 

 could such great quantities of bones, of both young and old 

 birds, have got together in the swamps at Hamilton and Glen- 

 mark ? It has often been suggested that flocks of the birds, 

 attempting to escape from fires, rushed into the swamps and 

 perished ; but when we remember that these moas died 

 thousands of years ago, long before there were any human 

 inhabitants to light the fires, it will be seen that this surmise 

 is quite out of the question. Only two hypotheses, or a com- 

 bination of them, appear possible to account for the facts. 

 Either the birds walked into the swamp and there perished, 

 or their dead bodies w^ere washed in. If we suppose that a 

 swamp acted as a trap for birds trying to cross it, we can con- 

 ceive that in time a great number of birds may have been 

 trapped in the same hole. According to Maori tradition the 

 moas frequented wet places ; and the fact that these swamps 

 always contain the remains of a large number of young birds 

 is also favourable to the idea. This theory, originated by Mr. 

 Mantell, is thought by both Mr. A. Hamilton and Mr, Park to 



