THE ZooLocist—Avueust, 1875. 4555 
with such forethought and care. There remains only one other 
explanation, which I advance with some diffidence, namely, that 
the builder of the dwelling, whoever he may have been, excavated 
not only the four holes for fixing the corner piles into the ag- 
glomerate, but actually lifted the same in the space between them; 
against this, however, it may be observed that—if such, as we may 
presume, unnecessary work was performed—the agglomerate bed 
ought not only to end abruptly round the former dwelling, but that, 
the removed material having been thrown outside, the thickness of 
the bed in question ought to be here much more considerable. 
However, from the sections made during the progress of the excava- 
tions, it does not appear that the agglomerate bed was generally 
thicker outside this oblong square or that it ended abruptly. On 
the contrary, the same was found to thin out generally close to the 
intersecting lines, the ash and dirt bed becoming gradually thicker. 
The same was the case in some of the other portions of the cave 
where the agglomerate was also occasionally missing, and I can 
only regret that when that portion of the cave towards the entrance 
was excavated, where a great thickness of the overlying shell beds 
had first to be removed, my official work at the Museum would not 
allow me to go so often to the ground as I should have wished. 
This question has therefore to remain an open one. 
Having reached (Saturday, October 19th) the cross trench on 
the eastern side of the cave, and thus examined the whole south- 
eastern portion, I began to continue with the excavations on the 
south-western side towards the termination of the cave in that 
direction. Hitherto we had not been successful either in obtaining 
human bones or Maori objects of any value, which J hoped might 
have been placed in a cache similar to those found in carefully 
excavated hiding places in the moa-hunter (and afterwards Maori) 
encampments at the Rakaia. However, that evening we came, a 
few feet from the south-western wall, upon disturbed ground, and 
carefully taking off the material, the skeleton of a Maori was reached 
who had been buried a considerable time. The Aborigines who had 
placed the body there had dug through the shell bed for about eight 
inches, then two inches through the dirt and ash bed belonging to 
the older series, and four inches through the agglomeratic deposit. 
They had then excavated the marine sands for several feet, and had 
placed the corpse in a sitting position in the grave thus formed, 
tied together with flax, the face towards the wall of rock, covering 
