164 Transactions. — Zoology. 



statement to Mr. J. W. Hamilton about catching moas with a 

 rope ; ••' but in the ancient tale the bird is said to have been 

 the blue heron, and not the moa. 



Lastly, we must consider the evidence afforded by the 

 j&nding of nephrite with moa-hunter remains in Monck's Cave, 

 near Sumner. The Ngaitahu have a tradition that their 

 ancestors knew nothing of nephrite until a piece was brought 

 over from Hokitika, in about the year 1700, by a woman 

 named Eaureka.f But, allowing this to be correct, it does not 

 follow that Te Eapu-wai and Waitaha were ignorant of it. 

 The knowledge of the places where nephrite was found might 

 easily have perished with them, or with the Ngatimamoe ; and 

 another tradition that the Ngaitahu came to the South Island 

 in order to find nephrite is quite in accordance with this idea. 

 Indeed, tradition says that nephrite w^as found by the very 

 first Maoris who came to the Island, and it was certainly 

 known in the North Island before the year 1700. 



We come now to the observational evidence which has 

 been collected during the last forty years. Sir Julius von 

 Haast formed his opinion of the great antiquity of the moa- 

 hunters largely on evidence obtained in the South Island. 

 He ascertained that at the old native cooking-places at the 

 2iiouth of the Eakaia the ovens of the moa-hunters were only 

 on the higher ground, some 10ft. or 12ft. above the sea, while 

 the Maori ovens which occurred on the lower terraces, about 

 8ft. and 4ft. above the sea, never contained moa-bones.| 

 Again, he showed that the encampments of the moa-hunters 

 east of Christchurch were confined to the inner line of sand- 

 dunes, and that only ovens without moa-bones were found on 

 the lower ground north of the Heathcote Estuary, between the 

 sand-dunes and Brighton. Also, at Moa-bone Point Cave, near 

 Sumner, the floor of which was 13ift. above high-water mark, 

 the upper deposits, between 3^ft. and 4ft. thick, contained no 

 moa-bones, but only estuarine shells (Venus stutchbitnji, 

 Papliia neozelanica, and Amphibola avellana) and Mytilus, 

 while the lower Gin. or 12in. contained moa-bones without 

 estuarine shells. He also showed that these moa-bone beds 

 rested on marine sands, which reached a level of Sift, to 9ft. 

 above high-water mark, and which contained human remains,^ 

 as well as bones of seals, and shells of Mactra discors, Papliia 

 spissa, Dosinia australis, and Turritella rosea, all of which 

 are distinctly marine. He also stated that outside the cave, 

 among the old sand-dunes, the shell-fish-eaters lived after the 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. vii., p. 121. 



t Stack, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. x., p. 86. 



+ Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 96. 



§ Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. vii., p. 74 ; and McKay, vol. vii., p. 90. 



