CHAPTER XII 



THE MOAS 



(Order Dinornithiformes) 



N the European occupation of New Zealand half a century or more 

 ago great numbers of the bones of gigantic birds were found strewn 

 over the surface of the plains or lightly buried in alluvial river-banks, 

 lake-beds, and swamps, as well as caves and crevices among rocks. 

 These birds were known by the native inhabitants as the Moa, and it was sup- 

 posed from the abundance of the remains and their generally good state of pres- 

 ervation that their extinction had been of comparatively recent date. There are 

 differences of opinion, however, as to the extent of the knowledge of the living Moa 

 among the Maoris, the native inhabitants, and on this point the Rev. William 

 Colenso, sometime Bishop of New Zealand, who first went among them about 1837, 

 asserts positively that he found no evidence in the traditions and folklore of the 

 Maoris that they had ever seen the Moa alive, or had knowledge of Moa-hunting. 

 This is surprising, for it is well known that among savage people even trivial in- 

 cidents are handed down for generations, and anything so important as the wiping 

 out of their chief food supply would seemingly have been abundantly commemo- 

 rated in song and legend. It appears that the Maoris have only been in their pres- 

 ent location for about ten generations, or some 250 or 300 years, and the Moa 

 could hardly have lived within that period, and it is held as probable that their 

 extinction was several centuries earlier than this. On the other hand, some 

 observers claim to have found traditional evidence among the natives of their 

 having hunted these great birds, and as will be shown later, several fragments 

 have been found in such a perfect state of preservation as seemingly to preclude 

 the probability of their being very old. But that there was a race of people who 

 subsisted largely if not entirely upon this bird, and who are apparently very largely 

 if not wholly responsible for its extinction, is abundantly shown. In many local- 

 ities extensive camping grounds have been found where there were cooking places, 

 employed evidently in cooking the eggs and flesh of the Moa. Some of them con- 

 tain great numbers of fragments of egg-shells, and by the sides of others are refuse 

 heaps containing hundreds of Moa bones, as well as vast numbers of crudely 

 chipped stone implements, together with a few of more polished workmanship. 

 Therefore it seems hardly likely that the Moas could have been living at best on 

 the North Island within the past 500 years, although it is possible that on the 

 South Island they may have lingered for a considerably later period, since in 

 several instances, especially in the province of Otago, fragments have been 



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