My New Zealand Garden 109 



folk to have been guilty of such atrocities as 

 cannibalism. I like to think of them sitting down 

 to a roasted moa, and having a tug-of-war with 

 the wish-bone after dinner, with new-laid moa eggs 

 for breakfast, boiled in hot springs, and dished up 

 in egg-cups of hewn rock. Moas must have been 

 grand sights, but I think their skeletons are 

 preferable. I suppose they could have swallowed 

 babies whole, and no one could survive a peck on 

 the head. Moa-hunting might afford good sport, 

 and their joints give variety to the butchers' shops ; 

 but unless their cooked flesh surpassed that of the 

 ostrich, 'No moa, thank you,' would often be 

 heard at table. Nothing authentic has come to 

 light as to the date of their disappearance, 

 although some very old Maoris occasionally 

 declare it to have been quite recent ; and since 

 one egg has been found with the bones of a chick 

 in it, their statement has been more credited. 

 Those much-revered heirlooms called 'meres,' 

 which are something like huge flat, club-shaped 

 paper-cutters, made of greenstone, and which 

 were used in battle, are becoming very scarce, as 

 their owners so often have them buried with them. 

 But only a proportion go underground, as some 

 have been presented to celebrities by the Maoris 

 themselves, and some find their way into museums. 

 Many of these weapons are made of wood or bone, 

 but those made of greenstone are very costly, as 



