166 M. de Quatretages on 



gone the action of fire. Dr. G. A. Mantell also tells us that 

 Mr. Taylor had met with similar hillocks in the valley of 

 Whaingaihu. These observations are not isolated. In the 

 northern part of the North Island, at the Pataua river, near 

 Wangarei, Mr. Thorne discovered, side by side Avitli remains 

 of ancient JMaori- ovens, a mixture of shells, ashes, pieces of 

 charcoal, and bones of seals, fishes, men, and Moas, which 

 had evidently served as a repast for the natives *. J\Ir. Roberts 

 has also found some human bones mixed with those of the 

 Moa and with charcoal, side by side with stones formerly 

 em])loyed in cooking themf. Lastly, Mr. Robson has made 

 analogous observations in the neighbourhood of Cape Gamp- 

 bell :|:. Thus, contrary to Dr. Haast's assertions, the Moa- 

 hunters were anthropophagi. 



VII. 



I have just examined Dr. Haast's principal propositions, 

 those which most directly touch the special question which is 

 the subject of this study. They are not much in accordance, 

 as will be seen, with precise facts upon which doubt can 

 hardly be thrown. This is the case also with what he ad- 

 vances with regard to the absence of local traditions relating 

 to the Moas §. As long ago as 1848 Dr. Mantell annoimced 

 to the Geological Society of London that his son had found 

 near Wellington the very distinct recollection of these birds, 

 larger than a man, which were formerly very abundant in 

 the country, and that some of the oldest Maoris even asserted 

 that they had seen some of them ||. Later on, in 1870, Sir 

 George Grey, in reply to a first memoir by Dr. Haast, wrote 

 a letter to the Zoological Society of London, in which he 

 aftirmed that twenty-Hve years before (i. e. in 1845), the 

 natives always talked to him of the Moas as having been 

 well known to their ancestors. He added, that the Maori 

 poems contain numerous allusions to these birds^f. In 1875 

 Mr. Hamilton published a conversation which he had held 

 with an old native, who said that he had seen the last of the 



* "Notes on the Discovery of Moa and Moa-hunters' Remains at 

 Pataua River, near Wangarei," by G, Thorne (' Transactions ' &c. vol. viii. 

 p. 85, pi. iii.) 



t "Notes on some Ancient Aboriginal Caches near Wanganui," by 

 H. C. Field (' Transactions ' &c. vol. ix. p. 220). 



\ " Further Notes on Moa-remains," by C. H. Robson (^ Transactions/ 

 vol. ix. p. 279). 



§ Second proposition. 



II hoc. cit. p. 26. 



^ " Letters of Sir George Grev," cited by Dr. Haast, in his Address, 

 p. 100. 



