338 Transactions. 



started on his second journey along the coast. In support of this sugges- 

 tion is should be mentioned that Colenso, in the " Tasmanian Journal" 

 (vol. 2, p. 7) refers to the fact that on the return of the Revs. William 

 Williams and Taylor from the coast the latter carried with him " a 

 part of a fossil toe (or, rather, claw) of some gigantic bird of former 

 days." 



In vol. 5, page 97, of the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute " 

 Mr. Taylor relates how he found a portion of a large bone at Waiapu, near 

 East Cape, in 1839 : ' When in the house of a Native at Waiapu with the 

 Rev. William Williams I noticed the fragment of a large bone stuck to the 

 ceiling. I took it down, supposing at first it was human, but when I saw 

 its cancellated structure I handed it over to my companion . . . asking 

 him if he did not think it was a bird's bone. He laughed at the idea, and 

 said, ' What kind of a bird could there be to have so large a bone ? ' . . . 

 The Natives said it was a bone of the tarepo, a very large bird which lived 

 on the top of Hikurangi, and that they made their largest fish-hooks from 

 its bones." Nothing is said about the finding of a claw, as related by 

 Dieffenbach and Colenso, Mr. Taylor's purpose, apparently, being to show 

 that he found the first bone recorded in New Zealand. This bone, Mr. 

 Taylor says, the chief readily gave him for a little tobacco. It is stated, 

 further, that the bone was sent to Professor Owen through Sir Everard 

 Home, but that it did not reach the professor for some time afterwards, 

 when Owen had already announced in his famous paper the existence of a 

 former gigantic bird in New Zealand, basing his conclusions on the speci- 

 men carried to England by Mr. Rule. 



There is no reason to doubt the statement as to the finding of the bone 

 in the ceiling by the Rev. Mr. Taylor ; but in order to obtain the best 

 available information concerning the earliest discovery of moa-bones in 

 this country I have obtained from Bishop Leonard Williams, who is the 

 son of the late Rev. William Williams, subsequently first Bishop of Waiapu, 

 a memorandum on " Moa Remains," and concerning the discovery of which 

 his late father was so closely connected. The legendary history to which 

 the bishop refers in his letter affords no satisfactory evidence as to whether 

 a long time or a short one has elapsed since the moa disappeared, or whether 

 the moa and the Maori were contemporaneous. It can hardly be supposed 

 that the disappearance of the moa, which was distributed throughout both 

 Islands, occurred synchronously, or that the moa of the North Island dis- 

 appeared synchronously, unless from some physical cause other than by 

 man's means. Bishop Williams is of the opinion that the moa's disappear- 

 ance is of recent date, and he is supported in his contention by men like 

 the late Sir James Hector, Professor Hutton, and, latest of all, Professor 

 A. Quatrefages.* On the other hand, Sir Julius von Haast, the Hon. 

 W. B. D. Mantell, F.G.S., W. Colenso, F.R.S., and Mr. Tregear (the former 

 from geological evidence, the last from etymological), and many others 

 have expressed the opinion that the moa disappeared either earlier than the 

 advent of the Maoris into the country or very soon afterwards. 



The first actual information extant concerning the legendary history 

 surrounding what are now termed moa-bones is the account given by 

 Polack. He states, as already explained, that he "saw several large fossil 

 ossifications, and that in times long past Natives received the tradition 

 that very large birds had existed in the country." Further, that traditions 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 25, p. 17. 



