230 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
particularly in certain groups of marine arthropods, the world 
over. He lives in a good stone house conforming in architecture 
to the other college buildings, the whole reminding one of the solid 
buildings of an English university. The reception room was large, 
very well furnished and was warmed by a cheerful wood fire-place. 
I also had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Chilton, a very pleasant 
motherly sort of lady who must be a great favorite with the col- 
lege boys. Here as everywhere else the shadow of the great war 
is evident and the Chiltons had lost a son on the battle front. 
Christchurch is a city of about 110,000 population, and no 
city in Old England is more English than this. It is the center 
of the great Canterbury Plains and has the River Avon meander- 
ing through it. It differs widely from the other New Zealand 
cities I visited in that its streets run regularly at right angles 
with each other, especially those away from the main business 
center; the out-lying districts look much like our prairie cities. 
The business blocks have all the solidity of a European metropolis 
and the Cathedral is one of the most imposing and architecturally 
satisfying structures which I saw in the Dominion. The streets 
are broad and well paved, with running water from the mountains 
in all the gutters, thus reminding one of Salt Lake City. 
On Saturday, August 5, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. 
Archey, of the museum, a splendidly set up young fellow of the 
finest English type to whom I owe very much of the pleasure and 
profit of my visit to Christchurch. He took me over the museum 
and pointed out some of its high lights. There is a good, system- 
atie collection of New Zealand birds, several of which are now 
extinct. There is a complete skeleton of a small species of moa 
which is particularly interesting, its leg-bones being extraordinarily 
heavy and massive in comparison with the remainder of the skele- 
ton. The largest moa, constructed of matched bones from several 
specimens of approximately equal size, is twelve feet high. 
Mr. Archey thinks that the eagle was an important factor in 
the extermination of this gigantic bird, as it preyed on the help- 
less young whose uncouth parents had no effective means of de- 
fending it. Another important factor was undoubtedly the native 
Maori race. There is no trace of wings on any of the skeletons 
which I saw, and it seems that we have here one of the very few 
actually wingless birds which have been discovered, although I 
believe that at least one specimen of moa has been found with 
rudimentary wings. 
