592 NATURAL SCIENCE. oct., 



by the early settlers to clear the scrub, so altered the conditions under 

 which the bones had been preserved that they soon decayed, in which 

 case we cannot say how long the bones may have been lying there. 

 It is something the same with those bones which still have dried skin 

 and ligaments attached. They are so fresh that, unless the birds lived 

 a few years ago, they must have been preserved under specially 

 favourable conditions ; and there are reasons for thinking that the 

 small district of Central Otago, in which alone these remains have 

 been found, is one specially favourable for preserving animal remains. 

 If this be so, we cannot say for how many years they may have been 

 preserved, perhaps for centuries, and as we have every reason to 

 believe, upon the authority of the Rev. J. W. Stack, that the 

 ancestors of the Ngai Tahu, who have inhabited the South Island for 

 the last 200 or 250 years, never had any personal knowledge of the 

 birds, we must allow that the Moa has been extinct for at least that 

 time. On the other hand, it is quite certain that the Moa was 

 exterminated by the Maoris, and the Maoris are not supposed to have 

 inhabited the South Island for more than 500 years, so that the time 

 of extinction must fall between these dates. It seems improbable 

 that the Ngatimamoe, the last remnant of whom inhabited the West 

 Coast sounds a few years ago, were Moa-hunters. The Moa-hunters 

 of the South Island were not cannibals, and as Te-rapuwai and 

 Waitaha, the tribes who preceded the Ngatimamoe, are said to have 

 been peaceful, and to have "covered the land like ants," it lends 

 support to the Maori tradition that it was they who exterminated the 

 Moa, and made the shell-heaps on the beach. If this be so, the 

 Moas were exterminated in the South Island about 300 or 400 years 

 ago ; that is, about a liundred years later than in the North Island. 



F. W. HUTTON. 



