140 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 
of their fishing tackle, bones of its extinct rel | 
ativés, and these bones they declared to be as 
large as those of an ox. ¥4 
About the same time another missionary, — 
the Rev. Richard Taylor, found a bone accra | 
to the Moa, and met with a very similar tradi- _ 
tion among the natives of a near-by district, | 
only, as the foot of the rainbow moves away 
as we move toward it, in his case the bird was’ 
said to dwell in quite a‘different locality from 
that given by the natives of East Cape. While, 
however, the Maoris: were certain that the — 
Moa still lived, and to doubt its existence was _ 
little short of a crime, no one had actually seen ~ 
it, and as time went on and the bird still re- : 
mained unseen by.any explorer, hope became ~ 
doubt and doubt certainty, until it even be- © 
came a mooted question whether such a bird — 
had existed within the past ten centuries, to — 
say nothing of having lived within the mem- 
ory of man. g 
But if we ilo not know the living birds, their — 
remains are scattered. broadcast over hillside — 
and plain, concealed ‘in caves, buried in the 
mud of swamps, and from these we gain a good _ 
