Field. — Date of the Extinction of the Moa. 561 



were destroyed by a landslip in 1846, while, by Maori ac- 

 counts, he was still not more than a middle-aged man, which 

 again fixes the date approximately. 



TO THE EDITOB. 



SiE,— Wanganui, 5th October, 1890. 



In about the year 1850, when residing with Mr. Samuel Clarke, 

 at Waipuna, on the Tamaki River, near Panmure, a Maori from Taupo 

 happened to be staying there. This Maori was about forty-five years of 

 age, and a very intelligent specimen of the Maori of those days, but I 

 forget his name. He told Mr. Clarke and me that he was invited 

 amongst his people to a feast at Taupo, at To Heuheu's place, where 

 there was to be a moa supplied as part of the feast. However, he said 

 that his party did not arrive until the feast was over, but he saw the skin 

 of the moa lying in a large kit in one of the whares. He said that the 

 skin was as large as the hide of a big ox, and covered with tufts of hairy 

 feathers, and long hairy-like feathers hung down from the head, with the 

 appearance of horse-hair. He afterwards drew a moa on a slate, describ- 

 ing it as about 14ft. high, and generally standing on one leg, and facing 

 the wind, making springs of 30ft. or more at a time. A kick from the 

 moa, he said, would kill any man. The Maoris caught them with snares 

 made of stout ropes. I am, &c., 



G. C. Rees. 



The next is part of a letter which appeared in the Neio 

 Zealand Herald of 31st October, 1892, from a gentleman who 

 had written to me to the same effect in the previous August. 

 After mentioning that he had seen in a newspaper a reference 

 to what I had written on the subject, he says, — 



In the seventies I was practising as a solicitor in London. Among 

 my clients was a Mr. Robert Clark. The matters in which he required 

 my services necessitated frequent interviews between us, both at my 

 offices and his house, and these interviews led to a most sincere and 

 cordial friendship springing up between us, which was only severed upon 

 my leaving England with my family to come out here. When I first 

 mentioned to my friend my intention to emigrate to New Zealand, he 

 said, " Why, I was there over forty years ago (this was about 1870), and 

 can tell you something about that country " ; and he added, " I believe I 

 am the only white man living who has seen a live moa." I need scarcely 

 add how interested and astonished I was, and I asked him to write me 

 his experiences in New Zealand (he passed several years here). At first 

 he was not inclined to take the trouble ; but, however, when he found 

 the time draw near when we must bid each other farewell, probably for 

 ever, his kind old heart got the better of him, and he promised me a full 

 account of his rather remarkable life as a parting gift, writing as minute 

 an account as he was able of the moa ; and at nearly our last interview 

 he handed me a bundle of manuscript neatly written, and I now extract 

 the following from it regarding that most interesting subject, the moa : 

 " The weather continuing stormy, to pass the time away (until the storm 

 abated, and they could get off in their boats), my mate proposed we 

 should travel inland, taking our muskets, and seeing if we could pick 

 up a few wild birds. We had been out for some time, but nothing what- 

 ever showed itself : whilst scrambling amongst bushes and underwood on 

 rather high ground, and looking down to a green patch of about 100ft. 

 long by 40ft. broad — this patch could not have been better kept in order 

 by an experienced gardener — stood an immense black bird of a beautiful 

 form, long legs, long neck, with a rather small head for so large a bird, 

 36 



