

Oct., 1893. CORRESPONDENCE. 3 i 7 



The Moas of New Zealand. 



Natural Science has honoured me with two reviews of my paper on "The 

 Moas of New Zealand," one in October, 1892, by Mr. R. Lydekker, the other in 

 May, 1S93, by Mr. H. O. Forbes, and by these I am gratified. I hope, however, 

 I may be allowed a little space for a few additional remarks, because, in the first 

 review, Mr. Lydekker has, unintentionally, I am sure, misrepresented my opinion on 

 an important point ; while in the second review there are two misstatements of facts 

 which I ought not to leave unnoticed. 



Mr. Lydekker in his criticism (Nat. Sci., vol. i., p. 594) says that as I admit 

 that the Moas probably passed from New Zealand to Australia during the Pliocene 

 (? Pleistocene) period without the passage of any mammalia in the opposite direction, 

 my arguments as to the impossibility of flightless birds, as such, having reached 

 Australia and New Zealand at an earlier period, are by no means convincing. But 

 in my paper I say that the migration from New Zealand to Australia could not have 

 been later than the Eocene period (Trans. N. Z . Inst., vol. xxiv., p. 147) ; and I point 

 out how, by an isolation of a part of the New Zealand area and its subsequent 

 connection with Australia, this latter country could have been inoculated with 

 Struthious birds without any possibility of mammalia passing in the opposite 

 direction. But it would be highly improbable to suppose that on a part of Australia 

 the Struthious birds had been isolated from the mammalia and then transferred 

 alone to New Zealand. The two cases are quite different. No doubt a little further 

 on in my paper I say that if Mr. De Vis is right in referring a femur from Darling 

 Downs to Dinornis, then we should have to allow a second migration from New 

 Zealand to Australia in the Pliocene ; and this may have misled Mr. Lydekker. 

 But it is, I think, evident that I was very doubtful about this, and now, having 

 examined a cast of the Queensland bone, I find that it differs considerably from any 

 genus belonging to the Dinornithidae, and resembles more closely the femur of the 

 Emu and Cassowary, especially that of the young Emu, 1 so that there is no longer 

 any reason for supposing a late migration of Struthious birds between New Zealand 

 and Australia. 



Turning now to the second review. In my paper I have a footnote regretting 

 that I had not been able to see Mr. Lydekker's " Catalogue of the Fossil Birds in 

 the British Museum," of which " no copy has as yet been received in Christchurch " 

 (I.e., p. 98). Nevertheless Mr. Forbes says, " It is greatly to be regretted by all 

 workers on this most difficult subject that Mr. Hutton did not defer the publication 

 of this valuable paper, in which has been brought together almost all the known 

 information on the Moa, till he had found time to compare his nomenclature with 

 that of Mr. Lydekker's catalogue — a volume which had already reached the Colony 

 before the reading of his paper " (Nat. Sci , vol. ii., p. 377). 



Now the first part of my paper " On the Classification of the Moas " was read 

 on October 1, 1891, and the second part, " On the History of the Moa," on 

 November 4, 1891 (both dates appearing on the face of the published paper) ; while 

 in the books of the Christchurch Museum I find an entry, in Mr. Forbcs's own hand- 

 writing, that Lydekker's " Catalogue of the Fossil Birds in the British Museum " was 

 received on November 18, 1S91 ; and as this is the first copy that reached 

 Christchurch, it is evident that both parts of my paper had been read, and had left 

 my hands some time before the book was received here. As a matter of fact, I was 

 not aware, when I read the first part of my paper, that Mr. Lydekker had been 

 working at the same subject. I saw a notice of his book a few days afterwards, and 

 went to the Museum to ask Mr. Forbes, who was then curator, if he had got it ; and 

 on his replying in the negative, I added the footnote to my paper. I mention this 

 because I do not wish Mr. Lydekker to think that I treated in so cavalier a fashion 

 his very valuable work, from which I have learnt a great deal. I could, of course, 

 have written to Wellington and asked leave to withdraw my paper, but it did not 

 seem to me worth while to do this, because none of the new species described by me 

 are identical with those described by Mr. Lydekker, and the only changes I could 



1 On Dinornis {?) Queenslandia, by Captain F.W. Hutton, F.R.S.,in Proc. Linn. See. X. S. Wales. 

 [2], vol viii. (1893), pp. 7-1 1. 



