Moas and Moa-Jiunters. 139 



for him the value of axioms capable of serving as a criterion — 

 so much so that positive or negative facts have no value in 

 his eyes, or rather cannot really have taken place, except 

 they agree with his theory. If we speak io him of more or 

 less complete skeletons found upon the ground side by side with 

 a little heap of Moa-stones, which would seem ito indicate 

 that the bird died upon the spot and has never been buried, 

 he declares that he cannot believe that these bones could have 

 resisted the influence of atmospheric agents for hundreds if 

 not thousands of years *. If we speak to him of the recol- 

 lections preserved by the natives with regard to the existence 

 of the Moas, their external characters, their mode of life, and 

 the means employed in killing them, he replies, that the most 

 civilized Europeans have no traditions relating to the mam- 

 moth and the rhinoceros, and that an inferior race which has 

 attained only to a condition corresponding to that of our 

 neolithic populations cannot have preserved any relating 

 to an epoch separated from them by an immense number of 

 years f. He adds that distinguished men have vainly 

 inquired into the traditions in question J. He refers particu- 

 larly, like Dr. Colenso, to the fables which, in New Zealand 

 as everywhere else, have become mixed up with the recol- 

 lection of actual facts in the memory of peoples §. He con- 

 nects what is said of the Moas with vague reminiscences of 

 Cassowaries brought by the Maoris from their original 

 country ||, or with information furnished by occasional emi- 

 grants^. The examination of the ovens, exactly like those of 

 the present islanders, and of the remains of repasts contain- 

 ing bones of Moas, furnishes him with a demonstration of the 

 contemporaneity of certain men with those birds ** ; but the 

 former, in his eyes, were an absolutely savage population, 

 knowing only how to chip and not to polish stone. If some 



' Tiausactions of the Nev/ Zealand luatitute/ tlie loliowiug iiieinoirs 

 upon the same subject :— in vol. iv. 1872, " Additional Notes," p. 90; 

 " Third Paper on Moas and Moa-hurters," p. 94, pi. vii. ; in vol. vii. 

 1875, " Researches and Excavations carried on in and near the Moa-bone 

 Point Cave, Sumner Ptoad, in the Year 1872," p. 54; "Notes on an 

 Ancient Native Burial-place near the Moa-bone Point Cave, Sumner," 

 p. 54, pis. iii. & iv. ; " Notes on the Moa-himter Eiicampment at Shag- 

 Point, Otago," p. 91 ; " Results of Excavations and Researches in and 

 near the Moa-bone Point Cave, Sumner Road (Postscript)," p. 528. 



Dr. Haast has also maintained his theory and the consequences whicli 

 he derives from it in his book entitled, ' Geology of the Provinces of 

 Canterbury and Westland, New Zealand,' 1879. 



* "Address," p. 71. t Ibid. p. 75. 



t Ibid. p. 76 et xeqq. § Ibid. p. 70. 



II Ibid. p. 77. i, Ibid. p. 106. 



*' Ibid. p. 82. 



