170 Transactions. — Zoology. 



In the South Island, in addition to the proofs that the 

 Maoris killed and ate moas, remains have been found which 

 give the impression that the birds had lived not many years 

 ago. These remains, indeed, are so fresh that if the birds died 

 fifty years ago they must have been preserved under specially 

 favourable conditions. But certainly the birds have been dead 

 for more than fifty years ; while we have reasons for thinking 

 that the district in which these remains have been found is 

 one specially favourable for preserving them. This being so, 

 we cannot say for how many years these remains have been 

 preserved — perhaps for centuries ; and, as w^e have every reason 

 to believe that the ancestors of the Ngaitahu, who have in- 

 habited the South Island for the last two hundred or two 

 hundred and fifty years, never had any personal knowledge of 

 the birds, we must allow that the moas have been extinct for 

 at least that time. On the other hand, it is quite certain that 

 the moa was exterminated by Maoris, and the Maoris are not 

 supposed to have inhabited the South Island for more than 

 five hundred years ; so that the time of extinction must fall 

 between these dates. It seems to me improbable that the 

 Ngatimamoe, the last remnant of whom inhabited the West 

 Coast Sounds a few years ago, were moa-hunters. The moa- 

 hunters of the South Island do not aj^pear to have been can- 

 nibals, and, as Te Eapu-wai and the Waitaha, who preceded 

 the Ngatimamoe, were, according to tradition, peaceful tribes 

 not given to war, this lends support to the native tradition 

 that it was they who exterminated the moa some three or 

 four hundred years ago— that is, about a hundred years after 

 they had been destroyed on the North Island. 



Note to Tabic of Measurements. — In the pelvis the length 

 is that of the pre-acetabular part of the ilium only ; the 

 breadth is taken at the antitrochanters. The breadth of the 

 sternum is taken across the body just below the costal region. 

 In the skull the length is from just above the foramen 

 magnum to the nasals ; B. sq. is the breadth of the squa- 

 mosals ; B. t.f. that at the temporal fossae ; while the height 

 is the vertical from the middle of the basi-temporal. 



