374 Transactions. — Geology. 



bones were discovered in it. Quarrying operations have 

 been carried on amid the material of this landslip for 

 between twenty and thirty years. These operations, on 

 reaching last year the live rock of the hills, disclosed an aper- 

 tm^e, through which a lad squeezed himself into the cave. 

 On its floor were found implements in wood and in green- 

 stone, half-burned pieces of timber, and fire-making apparatus, 

 so lying as to give the impression that when its occupiers left 

 the}' intended to return. The greenstone objects wei'e beauti- 

 fully made, while the implements of wood, such as the canoe- 

 baler, the paddle, and the fragment of a paddle-handle, exhibit 

 ornamentation characteristic of the Maoris. On the floor of 

 the cave were found also numerous largish fragments of moa- 

 bones, partly burned and partly broken, scattered round the 

 last fireplace, or found on the floor of the inner caves. In 

 the kitchen-midden in front of the ca;ve were found many fish- 

 hooks and barbed spear-tips made of .bone from the same 

 birds. On the surface were picked up several bones of more 

 than one individual of a species of swan. Just below the 

 surface of an untouched part of the midden I myself picked 

 out pieces of moa-egg shell, each with its internal epidermis 

 perfectly preserved. The question therefore stands thus: The 

 moa-egg shells, being among the refuse of the feasts of the 

 quite recent occupants of the cave, are the remains, it is legi- 

 timate to argue, of eggs they had eaten. There is no purpose 

 I can think of, subject to Ma,jor Mair's correction, for which 

 the Maoris could have used pieces of rotten eggs ; for, ex- 

 posed on the ground or buried under the soil with their con- 

 tents, these eggs would soon burst and break up into fragments. 

 It may be inferred, consequentlj-, that these eggs were found 

 • by the cave-dwellers in a more or less fresh condition, 

 and were brought into the cave for food purposes. If they 

 were sufficiently fresh for food, I need not point out that the 

 birds that laid them were, or could have been, still living, and 

 probably were so, and that the bones from which the fre- 

 quenters of this ca.ve made their implements, were as likely to 

 be obtained directly from living birds, or from birds which 

 they might have killed. It may be suggested that eggs of 

 moas miglit have been found sufficiently whole to be used for 

 utensils. The fragments that I found had not been so used, 

 as is deinonstrated by the epidermis of the interior. In the 

 other Sumner caves the remains of moa-eggs were abundant 

 in the kitchen-middens, and were found in such positions as to 

 suggest that they had been used for food. 



The black swan {Ghenopis atrata)— the only undomesti- 

 cated swan in the country — was introduced into Nevv' Zfeala.nd 

 from Australia a number of years after the settlement of Can- 

 terburv. The bones of the swans found in the Sumner cave 



