566 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



On Tuesday Mr. Drew received a valuable contribution to our local 

 Museum in the shape of the bones of perhaps the most perfect example 

 of a moa yet found in New Zealand. The bones were exposed among the 

 sandhills between the Turakina and Wangaehu Rivers by a late gale, 

 and, having been noticed at once, have been brought to Wanganui in a 

 very perfect condition. Though the skeleton will only stand 4^ft. high, it 

 is evidently that of an adult bird of a small variety of moa. This is 

 proved not only by the hardness of the bones, but by the fact that, along 

 with them, were many fragments of the shell of an egg, which must have 

 been nearly hatched, as there were also bones of the young cliick. It 

 would seem as if the bird had been overwhelmed by the drifting sand 

 while sitting on her nest. Even the bones of the head are complete, 

 which is a very unusual circumstance, as from their fragility they usually 

 get broken as soon as exposed to the weather and the trampling of stock. 

 Along with the bones are the harder portions of the windpipe, which, we 

 believe, had never been previously found under similar circumstances, 

 and seem to point unmistakably to the bird having been alive at a com- 

 paratively recent date. 



There is an inaccuracy in the report, the bones having 

 been found on the other side of the Wanganui Eiver. It is 

 the only instance in which I have known of tracheal rings 

 being found with moa-bones ; and fragments of egg-shells are 

 not often met with in this part. Only a few weeks ago the 

 bones of a moa were found in a cave near Eketahuna by a 

 party of roadmen, who divided them among them, instead of 

 having the sense to collect them carefully and offer them for 

 sale to some museum or collector of curiosities, as a perfect 

 skeleton. I believe that, even when found, many skeletons 

 have been destroyed or dispersed, owing to the ignorance of 

 the finders. 



I never could understand how the idea that the moa had 

 been extinct for ages had arisen, since it seems to me that all 

 the real evidence on the subject points to their having sur- 

 vived to quite a recent period — if, indeed, there may not be 

 some in existence at the present day. 



In a letter which I received from Professor Hutton, in 

 September, 1892, he said that " in, 1866 a smart New-Zea- 

 lander got up a company in London to catch moas on the 

 West Coast." This indicates that at that date there must 

 have been a very strong belief in the survival of the birds in 

 that locality ; and I remember Mr. G. Roberts, Government 

 surveyor, telling me of one reported to have been seen there 

 at even a later date, I think by some of his own survey party, 

 on the opposite side of a flooded stream. The birds have been 

 repeatedly rej)orted as having been seen on the West Coast. 



I was much struck by Mr. Tregear's paper on this subject 

 in last year's Transactions, because the circumstance men- 

 tioned by him seems to me to point in the diametrically op- 

 posite direction from that which he appeared to think that it 

 indicated. In my early days I read that the domestic fowl 

 was introduced into the South Sea Islands by the missionaries, 



