562 Proceedings. 



This gaily coloured bird is a native of Australia, but a few, escaped 

 from captivity, have multiplied in the North Island. In New Zealand 

 the bird is apparently taking to a ground life, with the result, that a 

 native variety far less adapted for flight than its Australian progenitor 

 is already being developed. 



Another curiosity was a sparrow with a deformed beak, 

 the upper mandible being of extraordinary length and curved 

 downwards, giving the head of the bird the appearance of that 

 of a miniature female huia. 



Second Meeting : 6th August, 1901. 



Mr. G. V. Hudson, President, in the chair. 



Paper. — " On Caves in the Martinborough District, and 

 Moa-bones found therein," by H. N. McLeod, 



Abstract. 

 The paper set forth minutely the details of the route to the caves, which 

 are situated on the Makara Stream (not to be confounded, of course, with 

 the better-known Makara near Karori), as well as careful measurements 

 of the caves and fissures and fossil bones found therein. The locality is 

 about sixteen miles from Martinborough, and the caves are found in 

 what is known as the "Cliff Paddock," a hill some 1,300 ft. bigh, with 

 precipitous sides, rising from the stream. The stream itself appears to 

 mark the route of a subterranean river. A stream issues from one of the 

 caves, while in another place a creek plunges into a shaft and is lost to 

 view. Moreover, after descending one of these pits, about 16 ft. dt ep, 

 and winding along a narrow tunnel for some distance, the rear of an 

 underground torrent was distinctly heard, but no access to the dark river 

 was discovered. When the land was first occupied, some twenty years 

 ago, the existence of the caves was unsuspected. The locality was covered 

 by a forest so dense that, as the station-manager said, " a hawk could not 

 have penetrated the undergrowth," yet from the various caverns since 

 exposed quite a cartload of moa-bones, some of large size, have been 

 removed, and are now mostly distributed among settlers in the neighbour- 

 hood. The author gave precise and minute descriptions of eight separate 

 caves, also of the fo.-sil remains, stalagmites, stalactites, and other 

 ordinary contents of such receptacles. In the vertical shafts the bones 

 of sheep and cattle were found, as well as those of extinct birds. The 

 moa-bones had not only been found in the form of skeletons, but lying 

 piled at the angles and in the narrow portions of the caves, where they 

 had been carried by water. Investigations of a gallery, which they 

 had some hope would open into a larger chamber, has been checked 

 by stalactite pillars 12 in. to 18 in. in circumference. Water was still 

 oozing from the roofs of the caverns, and the solid lime was still being 

 slowly deposited. One passage, about 3 ft. wide, the sides coated with 

 much siliceous deposit, somewhat damaging to clothing and knuckles, 

 was followed up for quite 100ft., when it became too narrow to permit of 

 further progress. 



Sir James Hector exhibited a map of New Zealand, 

 especially prepared to show the distribution of moa remains, 

 in which some hundreds of limestone caves in both Islands 

 were indicated. 



