504 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Art. LXXII. — On Remains of the Moa in the Forest. 

 By Taylor White. 



[Read before the Haivke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 11th July, 1892.] 



When engaged in sowing grass-seed lately, on a broad clear- 

 ing, I was greatly surprised to notice a collection of broken 

 bones, intermixed with a number of highly-polished stones, 

 which evidently were the gizzard-stones from a large bird. It 

 is worthy of special notice that this collection was simply on 

 the surface of the clay soil and not in the least buried, and 

 only occupied an area of 6ft. square. As the surface of the 

 ground had a considerable incline downward to the small gully 

 near by, it might be supposed that any objects placed on the 

 surface would have in the course of years a tendency to move 

 downward into the gully-bottom. This does not seem to have 

 been the case with these fragments, which to the finder had 

 the same appearance as if they had not been there more than 

 some fifteen years or thereabout. 



What effect the bush-fire — that is, the burning of the felled 

 timber — had on them I cannot say, as, to my judgment, they 

 show no signs of burning — that is to say, such of the bones as 

 now remain, the largest fragment of which is only some 5in. 

 long. But it is difficult to understand how anything was left 

 after the fire passing over. Perhaps to their position on the 

 edge of a previous burn and of the later fire they may in a 

 measure owe their preservation. 



One of the larger pieces of bone is remarkable for a 

 honeycomb appearance on the inside. The fragments of bone 

 are required as evidence of the large size of the bird which 

 made use of the stones to grind his food. These stones 

 are by no means large compared with the size of the bird, 

 the largest stone being only liin. long by lin. across. Three 

 others average about 1 square inch, for they may be de- 

 scribed as very thick compared with those I remember seeing 

 in Canterbury nearly forty years ago, which were of a kind of 

 white quartz, broad, long, and flat, as if partly prepared for 

 setting in a brooch. Quartz stones are not to be found here : 

 in fact, birds find a difficulty in getting the fine-grained stones 

 which they affect. For instance, I lately took a very large 

 piece of glass from the gizzard of a domestic fowl, and 

 accounted for its great thickness by supposing it was from the 

 thick bottom of a large bottle. Its point and edges had become 

 smooth and rounded, but it must have been full of cutting 

 edges when swallowed. The moa-stones under description are 



