558 Proceedings. 



the name of Fidica prisca was proposed. The specimens 

 exhibited were all obtained from the fissure, aud comprised 

 two beautiful species of moa, two skulls and bones of Notomis, 

 bones of Harpagomis, including many not previously found, 

 and a series of the remains of the Fidica. Diagrams showing 

 the shape and size of the fissure, and the mode in which the 

 bones occurred, were shown. {Transactions, p. 88.) 



New Member. — Miss Gordon Eich. 



Second Meeting : 14th June, 1892. 

 C. W. Adams, Esq., President, in the chair. 



Dr. Belcher read a paper entitled "A Page of Latter-day 

 Literature." 



New Members.— Rev. J. T. Penfold, J. Smith (of Fernhill), 

 A. Lee-Smith, Henry Williams. 



the moment the fire spread over the country ! Then, we know with per- 

 fect certainty that the Maoris must have scoured the country. When 

 they first arrived, and had increased to a sufficient number, and lost 

 the'ir terror of the wilderness, it is quite certain they must have enjoyed 

 hunting the moas in all directions. It is of no use some Maori experts 

 saying that, as the early Maori traditions do not contain much reference 

 to the hunting of the moa, they could not have had much to do with its 

 destruction. In point of fact, very little reference at all is made to the 

 moa. But it should be remembered that the Maori experts collected the 

 traditions almost entirely from the North Island, where probably, or 

 possibly, the moa was extinct at a much earlier period than in the South 

 Island. It is quite possible that the Maoris in the North Island who 

 succeeded those who had hunted the moa may not have maintained this 

 early tradition. In the South Island no attempt has been made, so far 

 as I can learn, to collect the traditions from the Maoris. Still, we have 

 the actual remains of the moa ; and there is no doubt that people with 

 exactly the same habits and customs and modes of living as the exist- 

 ing Maoris — not Maoris with weatherboard houses and buggies, but 

 people the same as the Maoris were eighty years ago— actually used the 

 moa's flesh and eggs for food. There is no doubt whatever about that ; so 

 that we ourselves have arrived at a period not very long subsequent in date 

 to the final disappearance of the moa. It seems incredible to us that a race 

 of birds so gigantic in size should disappear so rapidly ; but it is not so 

 incredible wlien we look at the fact that it is little more than a hundred 

 years since the buffalo ranged right through the eastern parts of the 

 United States, and yet that the traveller could not now gather the 

 slightest fragment of the remains of buffalo in the eastern States of 

 America, and that in a very few years even in the western prairies it will 

 be impossible to collect any evidence of the former existence of the bison 

 there, although, as I have already said, I have seen them there in thou- 

 sands myself. I only make these remarks to show the great importance 

 of the thorough and perfect investigation of this subject.- Ed. 



