Moas and Moa-hunters. 171 



peared. But it seems to me impossible to imagine a set of 

 conditions, naturally produced, capable of preserving these 

 tissues for centuries under the circumstances which its insular 

 position imposes upon New Zealand *. 



Thus every thing concurs to make us regard the final 

 extinction of tlie Moas as having taken place at no very 

 distant period. There is nothing opposed to our accepting as 

 true the statements collected by Sir George Grey and by 

 MM. Mantell, White, and Hamilton. On the contrary, 

 if we suppose that some of these great Brevipennes were 

 still living about a century ago, we can explain without 

 difficulty several perfectly well-ascertained facts which are 

 incompatible with Dr. Haast's theory, such as the existence 

 of tracks still easily recognizable, the preservation of frao-- 

 ments of flesh and skin, &c. Now it is towards this date 

 that the information collected by Mr. Hamilton carries us 

 back. Hauraatangi, the old Maori of whom he speaks, was 

 one of the oldest of his compatriots in 1844. He said that 

 he saw Cookf. We know that that illustrious mariner re- 

 discovered New Zealand, which had been almost forgotten 

 since Tasman's time, on October 6, 1769. Haumatangi was 

 therefore more than seventy-five when he was interrogated by 

 Mr. Hamilton, and not seventy only, as the author is made 

 to say by some printer's error. If we suppose that he was 

 about twelve years old when he observed the large bird which 

 he remembered so well. New Zealand would have still had 

 living Moas about 1770 or 1780. 



* This is also the opinion of M. Alphouse Edwards, to whom 

 the functions with which he is charged at the Museum, and his researches 

 upon fossil birds, give a particular authority in the question now under 

 consideration. The following is what he has been kind enough to write 

 to me upon this subject: — "Dr. Haast (' Geology of the Provinces of 

 Canterbury and Westland ') refers, in support of his theory, to the dis- 

 coveries made in Siberia of entire carcasses of mammoths whose death 

 dates from Quaternary times. On this point I do not share in Dr. Haast's 

 opinion ; for if animals can be preserved indefinitely in the constantly 

 frozen soil of Asia, this is not the case in New Zealand, where, throu'^'hout 

 the historical period, the temperature has been very mild and the humidity 

 considerable. These conditions must have facilitated the putrefaction of 

 carcasses, whatever may have been the natural conditions of their 

 entombment." 



t Dr. Haast invokes, in favour of his view^s, the silence of Cook on the 

 subject of the Moas ; but it is evident that at that time they had nearly 

 disappeared. Now as the coasts were everywhere populated, the last of 

 these great birds could hardly have been found except in the interior, 

 and it is quite simple that the great English mariner would receive no 

 information about them. The same observation applies still more 

 strongly to the ti-avellers who came after Cook, and whose silence is also 

 appealed to by Dr. Haast in support of his theory (' Geology of the 

 I'rovinces of Canterbury and Westland,' chap. xvi.). 



14* 



