Henry. — Moa Farmers. . 673 



Art. LXIX. — Moa Farmers. 



By EiCHARD Henry, Eesolution Island. 



Communicated by Sir James Hector. 



[Read before the Wellivgton Philosophical Society, 14th March, 1899] 



In one of the late Professor Parker's valuable papers he 

 showed that some fifteen or sixteen reputed species of moas 

 lived in New Zealand about the same time. "A most un- 

 expected result," he says, " since all other great flightless 

 birds inhabit each its own country or district. In the whole 

 of Australia, for instance, there are only two species of 

 emu and one of cassowary, while no fewer than seven species 

 of moa have been found in one and the same swamp." 



But here enters the old disagreement about what consti- 

 tutes a species ; and when the best authorities disagree laymen 

 may fairly assume that the question is not, and probably never 

 will be, settled while animals continue to vary. If every man 

 varies, and every living thing is born somewhat different from 

 all others, and if no two leaves in the forest are exactly alike, 

 then why need we disagree about what appears to be only a 

 matter of degree in a universal law ? Nature does not build 

 up an animal or a plant in a day, nor always in a century, 

 even from legitimate progenitors ; then why should an ex- 

 periinenter expect, in what is comparatively an atom of time, 

 to mix two species that may have taken ages for divergence 

 with millions of individuals and varieties of conditions ? An 

 able agricultural writer recently alluded to the " fixity of 

 species " as Nature's majestic law, because some Yankee 

 farmer in his hurry could not mix buffalo with common 

 cattle ; as if one man's lifetime was an appreciable period in 

 the existence of such animals in America ! 



If Professor Owen had known as little about cattle as he did 

 about moas he would certainly have classed those with horns 

 and those without as different species, though that buffalo 

 farmer would never think of doing so. And, under like con- 

 ditions, the learned professor, with a cargo of bones, would 

 have given us at least fifty different species of dogs, when 

 with only a cartload of bones he made us out a dozen 

 different species of moas. There were tall greyhound-like 

 moas, and stout massive ones, and on down to little Dandy 

 Dinmont things not above 2 ft. high. This great variety 

 living together suggests the interference of men, for surely 

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