THE ZOOLOGIST—OcTOBER, 1875. 4643 
are considerably under two hundred, but of this comparatively small 
number are there twenty in which the period of incubation has been 
at all accurately ascertained ? With respect to foreign birds, our 
ignorance on this point is still more profound. 
I might easily extend my remarks to other subjects, but I am 
unwilling to trespass on your time, and most of you will doubtless 
think I have already said enough. JI trust that 1 may have thrown 
out some suggestions that may be useful, and I think no one will 
dispute the fact that on the heads which I have mentioned we have 
insufficient information; while, if 1 am right in deeming them 
worthy of notice, we ought to bestir ourselves in order that we may 
become better acquainted with them. I doubt not that some of 
wy brother ornithologists of experience will countenance this view ; 
but their time is already pretty well occupied in the line of study 
they have each taken up; it is therefore rather to those who have 
not yet adopted any especial branch of research that I look for 
aid in the prosecution of these inquiries, which I believe are 
greatly needed to keep our science in the position we consider it 
should hold. 
Researches and Excavations carried on in and near the Moa-bone 
Point Cave, Sumner Road, in the Year 1872. Read at a 
Special Meeting of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 
New Zealand, on the 15th of September, 1874. By Juxrus 
Haast, Ph.D., F.R.S., President. 
(Continued from §. 8, 4565.) 
Excavations amongst the Sand Hills outside the Cave.—Before 
proceeding to general conclusions to be drawn from the results 
obtained during the excavations in the cave in question, I wish to 
offer a short description of my researches, of which some date as far 
back as 1865, made amongst the moa-hunters’ and Maori kitchen 
middens in its immediate neighbourhood. When speaking of the 
position of the cave, I alluded already to the two lines of boulder 
deposits running from the western headland in an easterly direction, 
and gradually diminishing in height and size. Between them and 
the foot of Banks Peninsula, near the cave, drift sands very soon 
accumulated, by which a quarter of a mile to the east these boulders 
were gradually covered. 
