5154 THE ZooLocist—NovemseER, 1876. 
In common with most people, I was long under the impression that the 
extinction of the moa was an event of recent date, and hastened by the 
Maori. I took it for granted that the natives only required to be questioned 
to afford every information regarding its nature and habits, and the causes 
of its disappearance. Further enquiry, however, has led me to think that 
the Maoris were not moa-hunters, and that the bones that strewed the 
plains of Canterbury were lying there at a period anterior to the last 
migration from Hawaiki.” 
Mr. Stack, however, says (Trans. N. Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 108):— 
‘‘ But how are we to account for any allusions to the moa at all in Maori 
poetry and proverbs, unless the people were familiar with it? Dr. Thompson, 
as quoted by the President (Dr. Haast) says, ‘That the moa was alive when 
the first settlers came is evident from the name of this bird being mixed up 
with their songs and stories.’ But Dr. Thompson was probably not aware 
that the Maoris were familiar with a large land-bird, which they called the 
moa, before ever they came to New Zealand. The name by which the 
cassowary is known in the islands is ‘ moa,’ and as it somewhat resembles 
the Dinornis in form, an exaggerated description of it would be a sufficiently 
accurate description of that gigantic bird to mislead any one not fully 
prepared to question the knowledge of the Maoris on the subject, into 
supposing that they were perfectly familiar with its form and _ habit. 
I remember hearing, when a child, of the beautiful plumes that were found at 
the top of the cliff which overhung a cavern somewhere on the East Coast of 
the North Island, where the last of the moas hid itself. But no one I ever 
met had seen them. Those who described them had only heard of them 
from others. It is quite possible that moa-feathers may have been found and 
used as ornaments ; but it is not necessary to believe they were so, to account 
Jor the description the Maoris gave of them. The feathers of the cassowary 
are used as ornaments in the islands where they exist, and probably the 
ancestors of the Maori brought some away with them. These, from their 
rareness, would be highly prized and carefully preserved, and when all recol- 
lection of the Hawaikan moa had faded away would be thought to belong to 
that moa of which remains were everywhere visible. In the same way we 
may account for the saying regarding the toughness of the moa’s flesh, which 
could only be thoroughly cooked with the twigs of the koromiko, by supposing 
that it was the flesh of the Hawaikian moa, and not of the Dinornis, that 
was meant. But, unless the Maoris saw the Dinornis alive, how did they 
know that the bones they found strewing the earth were the bones of a bird? 
The largest form of land animal life with which they were familiar on their 
arrival here was that of a bird which they called a moa. Probably they 
found many skeletons of the Dinornis lying in such positions as clearly 
to indicate its form when alive. Being careful observers of Nature, they 
