Hamilton. — On a Discovery of Moa-hones. 313 



more closely, found that there were two regular layers extend- 

 ing over a considerable distance. Having cut out a large 

 piece of the block, I brought it home, and you can now see on 

 the table before you a fossil moa's egg. The egg has evidently 

 been flattened, and thus shows two layers of shell extending 

 all round the block more or less continuously. 



Owing to the natm-e of the cliff it is impossible to make 

 any further excavation in this place, although many fragments 

 of bone and bits of egg-shell indicate that the bottom of this 

 old gully yet contains many bones. 



The Marine Parade of Napier does not seem a very likely 

 place for moa-bones, but at the end of the Coote Eoad the sea 

 cuts into a deposit of brick earth or loess, which abuts sharply 

 against the Limestone Bluff. The upper part of the section 

 exposed is full of debris from the Bluff Hill ; but below this, 

 and more towards the steps, bird-bones of various sizes are 

 occasionally to be found, and sometimes a moa-bone. I had 

 the pleasure of showing one in sittl to Dr. Hector when he was 

 here in 1878 : since then several have been exposed. I have 

 seen one within the last month. At the foot of the hills 

 between Pakipaki and Mr. Douglass's station are some very 

 deep creeks, coming from the limestone hills and cutting 

 through slope-deposits and flood-silts. In one of these creeks 

 I obtained about a dozen good moa-bones. In a valley of the 

 Greenmeadows Estate, close by the Puketapu road-cutting, a 

 large number of moa-bones in a very fragmentary condition 

 were found when the swamp was drained and the ground first 

 broken up. I was fortunate enough to get a few good bones of 

 a small species of moa and some bones of the extinct eagle 

 (Harpagornis) . 



Another very interesting locality, about which I hope to 

 have something to say some day in detail, is the sea-beach 

 near the woolshed at Waimarama. Here the beach is often 

 swept of the sand by the waves right down to the blue clay, in 

 which are seen stumps and roots of trees and moa-bones. 

 Mr. Hill and I, the last time we rode by there, saw about half 

 an acre of blue clay thickly studded with bones, all in too 

 rotten a state to bear removal. Many bones have been got 

 from the creek which here runs into the sea. 



I have dug out a stout femur from the cliff on the north 

 side of the Waikare Eiver, near Mohaka ; and in the Museum 

 are four very fine bones which were found in the Poutou 

 Creek, in the same neighbourhood. 



This brings us to sm-face-finds, and here I must note some 

 very large but much-decayed bones found by Dr. Hector in the 

 EaukawaBush, now in our Museum. They were found on the 

 surface, but all the small bones had disappeared. Mr. Pine, of 

 Eaukawa, and myself found several good moa-bones in a creek 



