Tbegeak. — On the Extinction of the Moa. 413 



Aet. LVII. — The Extinction of the Moa. 

 By Edward Tkegeae, F.E.G.S., &c. 



\Eead before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 21th August, 1892.] 



In the lately-issued volume (vol. xxiv.) of the Transactions of 

 the New Zealand Institute appears a paper by Professor 

 Hutton, F.E.S., on the subject of the moa. It is an admirable 

 monograph, evidently prepared with the intention of exhaust- 

 ing the arguments by collating and comparing the views of 

 different writers on the subject. The geological, zoological, 

 and traditionalist writings have been brought together, and 

 leave little to be desired in regard to these branches of inquiry. 

 Professor Hutton's article, however, has the merit or demerit, 

 in my eyes, of not having taken notice that there still remained 

 one line of investigation unexplored. I speak as if in doubt as 

 to the merit or demerit of this course because I feel that it 

 would have been of advantage to us had he used his great 

 powers of observation and scholarship on this as on the other 

 elements of his literary production, while, on the other hand, 

 his not having done so leaves the way open for again discussing 

 the matter. The line of inquiry which I refer to as neglected 

 hitherto has been that of comparative philology. I lay stress 

 upon the word "comparative," because the matter has been 

 treated in somewhat of a philological manner by reference 

 to place-names, &c, in which the word " moa " occurs. But 

 comparative philology tells us that if we want to find out the 

 meaning of a native word we must not only ask what the New 

 Zealand Maori means by it, but whether his brothers, the 

 Polynesian Maoris, use the word, and what they mean by it. 

 Nay, more, whether the black people spread through the 

 thousand islands of the Pacific know the word, and to what 

 particular objects the word is applied by them. 



I have already written on this subject, and that my paper 

 has not been noticed by Professor Hutton is owing to the 

 circumstance that he has sought for his local authorities and 

 traditional evidence in the pages of the Transactions of the 

 New Zealand Institute. My paper was contributed to the 

 Anthropological Society of Great Britain, and the arguments 

 it contained were only brought forward here by me in the course 

 of a discussion which ensued on a paper by Colonel McDonnell 

 as to Kawana Paipai having hunted the moa in recent times 

 on Waimate Plains.* I had not the right of reply on that 

 occasion, so was obliged to allow the arguments of my oppo- 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxi., p. 438. 



