556 Proceedings. 



3. Mr. Hamilton then read a paper on a fissure in lime- 

 stone rocks recently explored by him, containing bones of re- 



such a variety of forms that it is impossible to understand it in any other 

 way than that this was a kind of freak of Nature — a kind of artificial 

 natural-selection process in progress— that is to say, that Nature, by its 

 surroundings, produced the same variety of circumstances, the same 

 definition in range, that a fowl-fancier would adopt in order to produce 

 all the great varieties of fowls that we now find in a domestic state. 

 And yet this must have been all done by Nature ; because that this great 

 number of varieties actually existed before the Maoris arrived in New 

 Zealand is, I think, beyond all doubt, and the Maoris — the first-comers 

 to these Islands — only completed the destruction that had already been 

 in progress. Now, the formation of all these different species must 

 have been, I think — and it is generally accepted that it must have 

 been— the last event in the progress of a great geological epoch — the dis- 

 appearance of a great continent, the sinking of a wave on the earth's 

 surface. We must have had a continental area extending far to the east- 

 ward — there is evidence of that — embracing the Chatham Islands and far 

 beyond ; and that gradually this vast area of land, by the process of sub- 

 mergence, was so reduced that moas were driven back, and, instead of 

 occupying great pampas, great fields for the development of the race, 

 they were confined to a narrow mountain-range, intersected by steep 

 ravines and great watercourses, and restricted by a narrow seaboard. 

 Within that area natural selection, acting in these artificial restraints, 

 soon produced all the varieties that we now find from one original stock. 

 Whether Professor Parker in his most interesting remarks this evening 

 has hit upon the derivative or not I am not qualified to give an opinion, 

 but I think it must be allowed that all the moas must have been derived 

 from one stock, and that that derivation must have taken place within 

 New Zealand. There is no tendency of the ostrich to divide. We have 

 never heard even of marked varieties, although its range is enormous, 

 extending many degrees south and many degrees north of the equator, 

 and east and west a number of degrees of longitude. But here on this 

 narrow ridge we certainly have great variety of form produced, but, still, 

 not more than we see produced from a single derivative in all the domestic 

 poultry we have bred and developed. There is one point occurs to me. 

 If that is really the case any classification that is going to prove correct 

 in the long-run will, within the New Zealand area, tend to show the dis- 

 tribution of the moas. We will take the original type of moa, as any 

 moa. The original moas that were imprisoned in any particular part of 

 New Zealand, in a narrow valley or on a certain plain clothed with a 

 certain class of vegetation, must in time, by inbreeding and other causes, 

 have assumed a certain distinctive form or variety ; in another part of 

 the country the moa of the original type would develope another form or 

 variety, and so on ; and in that way wc should, if this idea is a correct one, 

 find our varieties of the moa — the really correct varieties of moas, from 

 their distinctive geographical distribution even within New Zealand. 

 Up to the present time the only attempt that has been made has been 

 one to distinguish between the moas of the South Island — the largest 

 area of New Zealand — from those of the North Island. So far I do not 

 think any other distinction has been made ; but I think we shall require 

 to go much more deeply and closely into the question if the real dis- 

 tribution of the moa is to be the test. That is a field which, so 

 far as I know, is untouched; and I may' say that the manner in 

 which moa-bones hitherto have been collected, almost without excep- 

 tion, has not been at all favourable to getting exact data upon 

 the subject. When a find of moa-bones is again made — and there are 



