514 Chronicles of Science. [Oct., 



with seals and a variety of other animals. From the examination 

 of the iimus or Maori ovens, there was evidence that cannibalism 

 prevailed at the time the Moas were used for food, but only in the 

 North Island. Certain works of art associated with bones in these 

 early deposits appear to indicate a period when many of the imple- 

 ments in common use among the ]\Iaoris, and supposed to have been 

 brought with them from Hawaiki, were unknown to these early 

 aborigines. The highly-prized Ponamu, or Greenstone, appears also 

 to have been discovered in New Zealand at a later date. The most 

 ancient of the native ovens which he had examined were scooped 

 out in the surface of marine deposits, generally blue-clays or sands, 

 such as are deposited in estuaries or tidal lagoons, and never covered 

 by other than fresh- water or blown sand deposits. 



Those at Wainongaro, in the North Island, and at Awamua, in 

 Otago, were the oldest he had seen, and contained fragments of 

 stone used as cutting implements, of kinds that showed that even at 

 that early period the natives had extensively explored the interior 

 of these islands. In Otago, especially, it is probable that the interior 

 was their usual dwelling-place, and that they only paid occasional 

 and j)eriodical visits to the sea-coast. He referred to certain rude 

 figures which he discovered drawn on the walls of a cave in the 

 Waitaki valley, among which was rudely depicted the likeness of a 

 Moa, by some early aboriginal artist, and proceeded to describe the 

 causes which led to the extermination of those birds. This must 

 have taken place within a very short period after the appearance of 

 man, adducing the very slight and obscure allusions in the most 

 ancient Maori traditions to their existence as proof of this. 



After alluding to the probable habits and mode of Ufe of the 

 Moa, and to the present representatives of the class of bird to which 

 they belong, Mr. Mantell concluded by saying that in his lecture 

 he confined himself to the subject of the Moa, the native word 

 including these birds as a whole, leaving the different species of 

 Binornis, Palapteryx, and other genera which have been made, to 

 those who believe that they have the necessary data ; for his part, 

 he did not believe that, with the exception of the very fresh skeleton 

 found in Otago, and now in the York Museum, of which the integu- 

 ment and feathers are partly preserved, there was yet a single 

 skeleton restored in such a manner as would be at all suited to the 

 wants of the bird if it were ahve ; he therefore strongly urged the 

 careful collection of specimens, and that those persons who discovered 

 bones, if they did not consider themselves well acquainted with the 

 subject, should leave them untouched until they could be exhumed 

 by properly qualified collectors. 



In Dr. Foster's ' Mississippi Valley,' * the author gives an 



* r. 415 



