576 MOA 
generally accepted in that sense. The earliest published notice of 
the Moa seems to be that of Polack, whose New Zealand, a narrative 
of his travels and adventures in that country between 1831 and 
1837, appeared in 1838, the preface to the work being dated from 
London in the month of July of that year. Herein he observes 
(i. p. 303) “that a species of the emu, or a bird of the genus 
Struthio, formerly existed in the latter [North] island I feel well 
assured, as several fossil ossifications were shewn to me when I was 
residing in the vicinity of the East Cape, said to have been found 
at the base of the inland mountain of Ikorangi” ; stating also that 
“the natives added that, in times long past they received the 
tradition, that very large birds had existed, but the scarcity of 
animal food, as well as the easy method of entrapping them, had 
caused their extermination.”! In another passage Polack writes 
(i. p. 345), “Petrifactions of the bones of large birds supposed to 
be wholly extinct, have often been presented to me by the natives.” 
And again (i. p. 346), “Many of the petrifactions had been the 
ossified parts of birds, that are at present (as far as is known) extinct 
in these islands, whose probable tameness, or want of volitary powers, 
caused them to be early extirpated by a people, driven by both hunger 
and superstition (either reason is quite sufficient in its way) to rid 
themselves of their presence.” 
There can be little doubt that the first Moa-bone seen in Europe 
was the shaft of a femur brought by Mr. Rule to Sir Richard Owen, 
who exhibited it to the Zoological Society on the 12th of November 
1839 ; but, though indicating its Struthious affinities, neither in the 
abstract of the memoir he read (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1839, pp. 169-171), 
nor in the memoir itself as published in 1842, when the fragment 
was beautifully lithographed by Mr. Scharf (Trans. Zool. Soc. ui. pp. 
29-32, pl. 3), was any scientific name assigned to the bird of which it 
had formed part. At two meetings of the same Society in January 
1843, Sir Richard having received further information from Messrs. 
Cotton and Williams, well-known missionaries in New Zealand, 
returned to the subject and exhibited various bones transmitted by 
the latter to Buckland, proposing for the bird to which they belonged 
the name of Megalornis nove-zealandiz ; though, finding this generic 
name to have been already used in another sense, that of Dinornis 
1 The amount of traditional evidence as to Moas which has come down to 
modern times has been variously stated by different investigators, and some of it 
is not unlikely to have been supplied to meet the demands of zealous enquirers, 
Still none can doubt that there is enough to prove the survival of the birds until 
after the country was peopled by man, and the legends describing them contain 
little that can be deemed fabulous. Nevertheless all are agreed that one of the 
most ancient of the Maori poems contains a, saying which may be rendered ‘‘ Lost 
as the Moa is lost,” shewing that its extirpation was accomplished when that 
composition was made. 
