334 Transactions. 



birds of larger and more colossal size than the ostrich or any known 

 species." This paper, as already explained, was read on the 12th Novem- 

 ber, 1839, and the Rev. William Williams and Mr. Colenso were at Waiapu 

 in January, 1838. Polack's book was published in 1838, and so it could 

 not possibly have been seen by either Williams or Colenso ; and we 

 have the latter's statement that he did not see Polack's book until many 

 years following its publication. Napier, Gisborne, and the East Coast gene- 

 rally are so closely connected with the early history of the fossil m'oa that 

 it is of some importance to state as concisely as possible the historical 

 sequence of events concerning the parties who played so prominent and 

 honourable a part in making known to the scientific world the truth of 

 Owen's generalization, that there had existed in New Zealand a Stnithio 

 bird equal in size to the ostrich. 



In order to arouse interest in the subject of Professor Owen's paper 

 among the settlers in New Zealand, it is said that a hundred or more addi- 

 tional copies of Owen's first paper were printed by the Zoological Society 

 for distribution to the colonies ; but the assurance is given by Colenso in 

 Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 24, p. 474, that he never saw Owen's paper or heard 

 of it. " Now, I positively affirm," he says, " that I not only never saw 

 Professor Owen's first memoir, but that I had never once heard of it ; neither 

 did I ever hear of any resident in New Zealand who had seen it." But 

 Colenso must have heard of the subject as dealt with by Owen in his paper, 

 because the newspapers were full of the new wonder from New Zealand, 

 and interest was aroused among the settlers throughout the whole of the 



two Islands, rr 



Up to the year 1838, as far as I can find, no individuals living in New 

 Zealand other than Allan Cunningham, botanist, and William Colenso, 

 printer, had interested themselves in natural science. In the Proceedings of 

 the Church Missionary Society there is a letter from Mr. Colenso in which he 

 suggests how valuable and welcome would be the gift of a microscope, and 

 it is evident from his earliest writings on botany and natural history that 

 he was a keen and careful collector of natural-history specimens from the 

 time of his arrival in New Zealand to the close of 1834. 



Dieffenbach did not arrive in the country until 1839, and, although he 

 states that a Native chief tried to dissuade him from ascending Mount 

 Egmont by saying " it was guarded by a moa," he does not appear to have 

 heard either legend or fact of the moa during his journey from Taranaki to 

 the Bay of Islands. During Dieffenbach's stay in the Bay of Islands he 

 resided next door to Colenso, and it was at this time that Dieffenbach met 

 the Rev. R. Taylor, who had recently returned from the East Coast in the 

 company of the Rev. William Williams. These missionaries started on 

 their journey in January, 1839 — a year after Colenso's first visit — and 

 returned on the 13th February. This was the Rev. Mr. Taylor's first trip 

 to the East Coast, for he was a recent arrival in the country ; but he is 

 said to have succeeded in obtaining a fossil toe-bone, which, with other 

 bones, Dieffenbach saw. It appears that small parcels of broken bones 

 had been sent to Mr. Colenso (a) by the Rev. William Williams, and 

 (6) by the Maori teachers who had been sent to the East Coast after the 

 return of Messrs. Williams and Colenso in February, 1838. Colenso says 

 he told the " Maori teachers," when starting to the East Coast, to inquire 

 for fossil bones, and to send them t,-> him at his home in the Bay of Islands 

 whenever opportunity should rfer, Hence Dieffenbach saw the toe-bone 

 found by the Rev. R. Tay'or ?:.,! h* bones belonging to Colenso sent to 



