498 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Maoris did not get their ransom of £20, Mr. Collie and Mr. Lys 

 having managed to leave very early the next morning for 

 Napier ; consequently they took possession of all they found 

 at the camp where they had discovered the two Europeans. — 

 W.C. 



Aet. LVII. — Notes and Ohservations on M. A. cle Quatref ages' 

 Paper " On Moas and Moa-hionters ," rejmblished in Vol. 

 XXV., Transactions New Zealand Institute. 



By W. CoLENSo, F.R.S., F.L.S. (Lond.), &c. 



[Read before the Wellington Pliilosophical Society, 13th December, 



1893.] 



Every kiud of evidence is made to tell by writers who have a theory to 

 defend. Max MSlleb : " The Gifford Lectures," 1891, p. 428. 



It very frequently happens that he who defends the truth does not gain the 

 victory, since the hearers are either prejudiced, or have no great interest in the 

 better cause. CIjEment: "Recognitions," lib. ii., c. 5. (a.d. 300). 



A generous friendship no cold medium knows, 

 Burns with one love, with one resentment glows. 



Pope : " Iliad," book ix., 1. 275. 



It was with no small amount of surprise that I saw in 

 vol. XXV., Trans. N.Z. Inst, (lately to hand), that old and 

 long paper of M. A. de Quatrefages on the Moa (Dinornis 

 species) again served up, and that, too, in a brand-new trans- 

 lation. That paper having already appeared in full in an 

 English translation, ''■• in such a respectable, old-established, 

 and well-known first-class scientific serial as " The Annals 

 and Magazine of Natural History " nearly ten years ago, 

 surely there was no necessity for (I might truly enough say, 

 no benefit to arise from) it being republished in the Trans- 

 actions, especially as it contains many errors which, 

 possibly, were not fully known to the writer at the time, but 

 which are almost sure to accompany all such heterogeneous 

 and voluminous compilations, particularly when strung to- 

 gether by one who does not fairly grasp his subject ; and still 

 more so when he has a former and pet theory, or "fad," of 

 his own to supplement and defend. And, as the one eminent 

 man against whom that paper is particularly levelled is no 

 longer among us to reply to it — which, however, I well knew 

 he fully intended to do — and as I am in full possession of 



* Which, moreover, was highly eulogized by Mr. Maskell as being a 

 " good translation," in his paper on it : " Review of a Paper on the Moa 

 by M. A. de Quatrefages," read before the Wellington Philosophical 

 Society, 3rd September, 1884. (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xvii, p. 448.) 



