Hill. — The Moa— Legendary , Historical, and Geological. 343 



Since the days of the first findings of the bones of the moa the South 

 Island has produced even larger collections of bones than the North, and 

 the information has been such as to suggest to persons in the South Island 

 its comparatively late disappearance. 



In vol. 1 of the Transactions the Hon. W. B. D. Mantell infers from an 

 examination of Maori ovens that cannibalism prevailed at the time the 

 moas were used for food ; and Dr. Hector alluded to " the profusion of 

 moa-eg'g shells in the ovens of the interior, which showed that eggs must 

 have been prized as food, and that their consumption must have soon led 

 to the extinction of the birds." 



There is no such evidence as this along the East Coast. Traces of 

 middens are common everywhere, and all the evidences of a long Native 

 settlement are abundant. So likewise there is evidence of the existence of 

 the moa and scores of other birds ; but a careful examination satisfies me 

 that the moa dwelt along the coast before the advent of man, and that no 

 disturbing causes from the human side tended to their disappearance. The 

 sand-dunes along the coast where the traces of moa-bones, shells, moa- 

 chick bones, &c, are common require to be carefully studied. The dunes do 

 not consist of a single series of sands, but two, and sometimes three, sepa- 

 rate deposits are traceable. The sand and clay accumulations extend from 

 the foothills over an extensive shelving area of low rocks — remnants of 

 land that the sea has borne away and covered with the clay-sands from 

 the greensands and limestones that are found along the coast. These sands 

 represent an accumulation over a long period of years, during which time 

 even the physical features of the country have changed. The lower beds 

 present the appearance of having been occupied by birds without intrusion 

 of an enemy, for there are many varieties of bones, and no trace of occupa- 

 tion by human beings. The middle beds contain obsidian, bones of the 

 walrus, fish-bones, human bones, and shells, whilst the upper sands repre- 

 sent blown or moving sands which soon cover the other beds, and make 

 an appearance as if all the beds belong to one and the same series. It can 

 readily be understood how the middle and upper sands may get mixed 

 with the lower by wearing, and this has taken place more rapidly of late 

 years, so that a very careful inspection is necessary in order to separate the 

 beds from each other. 



The moa findings are mainly on the high almost inaccessible ridges of 

 limestones, in very broken country or in caves, except in the case of deposits 

 on shelving coast areas where sand occupies the site of land that has been 

 worn down to the level or below the level of the surrounding sea. An 

 examination of the coastal beds shows that fresh-water shells are associated 

 with the bird-bone beds, and that the bones represent birds that have dis- 

 appeared or are disappearing to-day. 



Between Wainui (south of Cape Turnagain) and the East Cape the sands 

 provide no evidence of contemporaneity between the moa period and the 

 Maori period, and certainly one could not gather that the Maoris ate the 

 eggs of the moa because broken shells are common among the bird-bone 

 sand -deposits. Frequent visits to the deposits along the coast have con- 

 vinced me that the moa period coincided with the deposition of the lowest 

 sands, which go back a long series of years. The extensive sand-deposits 

 south of Turnagain, at Waimarama (south of Cape Kidnappers), at Nuhaka 

 (on the north shore of Hawke's Bay), at Wainui (east from Gisborne), and at 

 Pakarae (near Whangara, to the north of Wainui) contain numerous bones 

 of the adult and chick moas, together with broken shells, but there is no 



