ADDITIONAL NOTES, 



The spot whence these precious relics of the colossal birds that oace 

 Inhabited the islands of New Zealand were obtained, is a flat tract of 

 land, near the embouchure of a river, named Waingongoro, not far from 

 Wanganui, which has its rise in the volcanic regions of Mount Egmont. 

 The natives affirm that this level tract was one of the places first dwelt 

 upon by their remote ancestors ; and this tradition is corroborated by the 

 existence of numerous heaps and pits of ashes and charred bones, indicating 

 ancient fires, long burning on the same spot. In these fire-heaps Mr. 

 Mantell found burnt bones of men, mo"S > and days. 



The fragments of egg-shells, imbedded in the ossiferous deposits, had 

 escaped the notice of all previous naturalists. They are unfortunately 

 very small portions the largest being only four inches long but they 

 afford a chord by which to estimate the size of the original : Mr. Mantell 

 observes that the egg of the Moa must have been so large that a hat would 

 form a good egg-cup for it. These relics evidently belong to two 01 

 more species, perhaps genera. In some examples the external surface is 

 smooth; in others it is marked with short intercepted linear grooves, 

 resembling the eggs of some of the Struthionidae, but distinct from all 

 known recent types. In this valuable collection only one bone of a 

 mammal has been detected, namely, tine femur of a doy. 



An interesting memoir, on the probable geological position and 

 age of the ornithic bone- deposits of New Zealand, by Dr. Mantell, 

 based on the observations of his enterprising son, is published in the 

 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London (1848). It 

 appears that in many instances the bones are imbedded in sand and clay, 

 which lie beneath a thick deposit of volcanic detritus, and rest on an 

 argillaceous stratum abounding in marine shells. The specimens found 

 in the rivers and streams have been washed out of their banks by the 

 currents, which now flow through channels from ten to thirty feet deep, 

 formed in the more ancient alluvial soil. Dr. Mantell concludes that 

 the Islands of New Zealand were densely peopled at a period geologically 

 recent, though historically remote, by tribes of gigantic brevi-pennate 

 birds allied to the ostrich tribe, all, or almost all, of species and genera 

 now extinct; and tbat subsequently to the formation of the most ancient 

 ornithic deposit, the sea-coast has been elevated from fifty to one hundred 

 feet above its original level; and hence the terraces of shingle and loam 

 which now skirt the nr.uritime districts ; the existing rivers and mountain 

 torrents flow in deep gullies which they have eroded in the course ot 

 centuries in there pleistocene strata, in like manner as the river courses oJ 

 Auvergne, in central France, are excavated in the mammiferous terti^ 

 deposits of that country. The last of the gigantic birds were probably 

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