APPENDIX. 577 



then covered, they followed the foot-prints till they obtained a 

 sight of the Notornis, which their dogs instantly pursued, and 

 after a. long chase caught alive in the gully of a sound behind 

 Resolution Island. It ran wdth great speed, and upon being 

 captured uttered loud screams, and fought and struggled vio- 

 lently ; it was kept alive three or four days on board the 

 schooner and then killed, and the body roasted and ate by 

 the crew, each partaking of the dainty, which was declared to 

 be delicious. My son fortunately secured the skin. 



" Mr. Walter Mantell slates, that, according to the native 

 traditions, a large Rail was contemporary with the Moa, and 

 formed a principal article of food among their ancestors. It 

 was known to the North Islanders by the name of ' Moho' 

 and to the South Islanders by that of 'Takahe ' ; but the bird 

 was considered by both natives and Europeans to have been 

 long since exterminated by the wild cats and dogs, not an 

 individual having been seen or heard of since the arrival of the 

 Enghsh colonists. That intelhgent observer, the Rev. Richard 

 Taylor, who has so long resided in the islands, had never 

 heard of a bird of this kind having been seen. In his ' Leaf 

 from the Natural History of New Zealand,' under the head of 

 ' Moho,' is the following note : ' Rail, colour black, said to 

 be a wingless bird as large as a fowl, with red beak and legs ; 

 it is nearly exterminated by the cat : its cry was keo, keo.' ' 

 The inaccuracy and vagueness of this description proves it to 

 be from native report and not from actual observation. To 

 the natives of the pahs or villages on the homeward route, 

 and at Wellington, the bird was a perfect novelty and excited 

 much interest. I may add, that upon comparing the head 

 of the bird with the fossil cranium and mandibles, and the 

 figures and descriptions in the ' Zoological Transactions,' my 

 son was at once convinced of their identity ; and so dehghted 

 was he by the discovery of a living example of one of the sup- 

 posed extinct contemporaries of the Moa, that he immediately 

 wrote to me, and mentioned that the skull and beaks were 



VOL. II. 2 r 



