134 M. de Quatrefages on 



Taking into account these various data and the characters 

 distinguishing the Brevipennes inhabiting the other regions of 

 the globe, we may form a very precise idea of what these 

 large species of Moas were like. They presented the general 

 form of the emeu [ = Cassowary], but upon a much larger 

 scale. Like this, they had the greater part of the neck naked ; 

 but they were destitute of the characteristic crest, and in this 

 respect resembled the emou \promcBus\. Very probably the 

 legs were naked and the body was covered with silky plumes, 

 in which darker or lighter and more or less reddish tints of 

 brown predominated, variegated with black and white, at 

 least in some species. 



Documents, to which I shall have to return further on, 

 enable us to complete this picture, and make known to us the 

 mode of life of these strange birds*. The Moas were slug- 

 gish and stupid animals, as is shown by a proverb which is 

 repeated at the present dayf. They were essentially seden- 

 tary and went about in pairs accompanied by their young. 

 No doubt they sometimes disputed the field on which they 

 were seeking the same food, for the Maoris still, in speaking 

 of a struggle between two pairs of combatants, say — " Two 

 against two, like the Moas." Their nests were formed of 

 various dried grasses and fragments of ferns simply brought 

 together into a heap. They ate various species of plants 

 growing upon the borders of the woods and marshes, the 

 young shoots of certain shrubs, &c. ; but their principal food 

 appears to have been the root of a species of fern which they 

 dug up either with the beak or with the feet. To assist in 

 the trituration of these articles of food, the Moas, like many 

 other birds, swallowed small pebbles, which, when rounded 

 and polished by friction in the stomach, acquire a peculiar 

 aspect and are still called Moa-stones by the natives, who 

 know them well \. But this very polish rendered them unfit 

 for the service which the bird expected from them, and then 

 he disgorged them just as do the ostrich and the emou§ 



* Letter from Mr. John White to Mr. Travers (' Transactions ' &c. 

 vol. viii. p. 81). Mr. Travers informs us that his correspondent has 

 occupied himself for more than thirty-five years in collecting all possible 

 information upon the past of the Maoris, that he has been initiated by 

 their priests into all the mysteries of indigenous knowledge, so that he 

 knows the history of their race better than the natives themselves. 



f Extracts from a letter from F. L. Maning, Esq., relative to the extinc- 

 tion of the Moas ('Transactions,' &c. vol. viii. p. 102). The author 

 translates the Maori proverb by the words, *'as inert (ngoikae) as a 

 Moa." 



\ ' Hochstetter,' p. 186. 



§ " Note on Discovery of Moas and Moa-huuters' Remains at Patana 

 River, near Wangarey," by J. Thorn, jun. (' Transactions.' &c. vol. viii. 



