Miscellaneous. 77 



mention the power of many of the lower animals to endure intense 

 cold, musquitoes and others of the insect tribe being frequently frozen 

 into one black solid mass, which, when thawed, renewed all their 

 energies. Spiders frozen so hard as to bound from the floor like a 

 pea were revived by the fire ; so were frozen leeches, frogs and snails. 



I also avail myself of the opportunity to forward you for publication 

 in your widely-diffused journal some notices of the Moa, which I find 

 in the report of a scientific meeting at Sydney, recorded in the ' Syd- 

 ney Morning Herald,' and in an article in the second number of a 

 very interesting colonial periodical, the ' New Zealand Magazine.' 



Your obedient servant, 



P. L. SiMMONDS. 

 THE MOA. 



" Dr. Nicholson then drew the attention of the meeting to a fossil 

 bone of the Moa, which he had recently received from a friend who 

 had arrived from New Zealand, and which he begged the Society to 

 place in its museum. It was known to all of them that the discovery 

 of the fossil bones of the Moa had excited considerable attention in 

 the scientific world, and Professor Owen, the highest authority on 

 comparative anatomy, had pronounced them to be the bones of a 

 bird of from sixteen to twenty feet high, and of the same type as 

 the Apteryx, which is now in existence in New Zealand. It was 

 supposed that there was a probability of the Moa not being extinct ; 

 and a son of Archdeacon "Williams, and some American sailors, said 

 that they saw one when travelling in the interior; but he (Dr. N.) 

 doubted the fact. It would be seen, however, that this bone was not 

 much fossilized ; that it bore very little of a mineral character ; and it 

 was probable, therefore, that within a comparatively recent period the 

 Moa was in existence. The disappearance of particular species of 

 animals was by no means uncommon. There was the well-known 

 case of the Dodo, which existed in large numbers when the island of 

 Mauritius was first discovered, but is now extinct, and he believed 

 that there is not even a perfect skeleton of it in existence. 



" Within a very short distance of Norfolk Island there is a small islet 

 called Philip Island, which was formerly inhabited by a large num- 

 ber of a peculiar description of Parrot, called, as we believe, the Lei- 

 cester Parrot : that Parrot is now extinct. Mr. Holroyd thought 

 there was great reason to beUeve that the Moa would be fonnd alive. 

 The bones were found in large quantities on the Southern Island, 

 which is very thinly populated by natives, and a very large portion 

 of which has never been seen by a white man ; besides which, the 

 natives profess to have seen the Moa within twenty-five years." 



In the second number of the ' New Zealand Magazine,' in a paper 

 by the Rev. R. Taylor, on the Geology of New Zealand, I find the 

 foUovping : — 



" Mr. Memaul, employed by the Government as native interpreter, 

 stated to me, that in the latter end of 1 832 he saw the flesh of the 

 Moa in Molyneux harbour ; since that period he has seen feathery oi' 



