38o NATURAL SCIENCE. May. xsgi. 



three years ago, no Maori scholar had even a suspicion llial the 

 swan was known to the natives before its quite recent re-introduction 

 by Europeans, and if this omission from their traditions has taken 

 place with one important bird, why not with another ? In this case, 

 the negative evidence relied on by Mr. Hutton is far from being con- 

 vincing. 



The enormous number of bones found by the early settlers 

 scattered over the surface of the ground on both islands, which 

 ha\e now nearly disappeared, is evidence which seems to me to 

 prove that the Moa existed down to quite recent tinies. This dis- 

 appearance of the bones is attributed by Mr. Hutton to " the con- 

 stant burning of the scrub by Eiiyopeans [for he e\idently thinks 

 (p. 151) that there were no fires before there were " human inhabi- 

 tants to light the fires"], in which case the surface bones do not 

 prove the late existence of the Moa in the districts where they were 

 found." In the time (according to Mr. Hutton 400-500 years) since 

 the Moa disappeared, there must have been all over the country fires 

 ignited hundreds of tinies by lightning, and by stones rolling down 

 hill-sides striking sparks from other stones and setting the parched 

 grass, which is as inflammable as tinder after every nor'wester, on fire, 

 which would travel farthest and burn most furiously just in those dry 

 regions of Otago, where, Mr. Hutton believes, " bones, skin and liga- 

 ment, once dried, and protected from the sun might easily be preserved 

 for centuries." Then, also, the numerous little heaps of gizzard-stones 

 lying on the surface of the ground (evidently voided by the birds), 

 can, surely, scarcely have remained so little disturbed, even where pro- 

 tected by vegetation, for four or five centuries, in the midst of the denu- 

 dation that goes on in New Zealand, by rain, frost and winds; for the 

 gales that blow from the north-west in the summer can carry pebbles, 

 as I have myself seen, larger than most of the Moas' gizzard-stones. 

 It is very singular that Polack (whose book was published in 1838) 

 should ha\e been told by the natives that large birds (which he con- 

 sidered to be struthious) were then still living in the South Island, 

 and this, it must be remembered, was before there was any sus- 

 picion of the existence of the Moa, and before the first bones had 

 been discovered ; it is not improbable, therefore, that the Moa may 

 have been living on the South Island down even to the time that 

 Captain Cook visited New Zealand. 



Much, it is evident, still remains to be done before it can be said 

 that the life-history of the Moas has been fully elucidated or their 

 classification satisfactorily established. 



He.nry O. Forbes. 



