262 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Art. XXIX. — On the Bird Moa and its Aliases. 

 By Taylor White. 



[Read before th.e Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 8th October, 



1894.] 



It has long been a subject of discussion among the scientists 

 of New Zealand and elsewhere as to whether the numerous 

 species of the Dinomis were contemporaneous with the 

 present Maori race, many learned men maintaining the 

 opinion that a Polynesian people inhabited New Zealand 

 prior to the arrival of the Maori emigrants from the 

 islands of Polynesia. That New Zealand was inhabited by 

 Polynesian people other than those we call Maoris there 

 seems little cause to doubt : in fact, tradition allows that 

 such was the case. But these people do not seem to have 

 been numerous, or of a fighting race, and were quickly con- 

 quered, enslaved, intermarried with, and so obliterated from 

 the page of more reliable historical tradition. It is evident 

 that this former people did not entirely exterminate the 

 Dinomis, for we can show, through different lines of de- 

 duction, that the Maori killed the moa, a certain and con- 

 clusive proof of which I will endeavour to present to you in 

 this paper. 



In the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," 

 vol. xxv., p. 413, Mr. Edward Tregear has a very able paper on 

 " The Extinction of the Moa," in which he treats this subject 

 on the basis of comparative philology. From the word " moa " 

 he deduces the following conclusions : that, whereas this word 

 is used throughout most of the Polynesian islands to denoto 

 the domestic fowl (Gallus bankiva, var.), and as compounds of 

 the word denote certain parts and attributes of the domestic 

 fowl at those places, consequently, assuming that the word 

 " moa " was brought by the Maori emigrants as a part or 

 integral portion of their vocabulary from those same islands, 

 this word must still retain its original meaning as a domestic 

 fowl, and therefore was not likely to be used as a name for 

 the Dinomis. 



But Mr. Tregear does not explain this point : When Captain 

 Cook brought and " turned into the forest/' and also gave to 

 the Maoris, "pigs and fowls which we brought from the 

 islands," how was it the Maori recognised the pig as an old 

 friend by the name of poaka — by which name, with its vari- 

 ants, it is known throughout Polynesia — but seemingly had no 

 more knowledge of the domestic fowl than they had of the 

 American turkey when introduced at a later date? Of this 



