THE ZooLocist—NovemBeR, 1876. 5155 
would note the resemblance between the skeletons they found here and the 
skeletons of the moa with which they were acquainted in the islands, and 
would at once conclude that they were identical, and call them by the same 
name,” 
It will be observed that Mr. Stack does not go the same length 
that Dr. Haast does as to the time which has elapsed since the 
moa became extinct, although he supports the Doctor in his 
opinion that its extinction preceded the arrival of the present race 
in these islands. But whilst he goes no further than this in sup- 
porting his leader’s “conclusions,” he calls upon us to accept a 
a series of very remarkable propositions, which he makes on his 
own account :— 
Firstly, that the bones found on the surface of the plains in 
various parts of the North Island existed there before the intro- 
duction of the present race into New Zealand—an event which 
careful inquiry leads us to carry back to a very remote period. 
Secondly, that the present race must necessarily have migrated 
from some place in which either the cassowary or some other bird 
of the same kind existed, and was so commonly used as food that 
the very structure of the skeleton was matter of ordinary knowledge 
amongst the inhabitants. 
Thirdly, that upon the discovery by the immigrants of the present 
race of moa-bones on the surface of the plains, they would at once 
have assigned them to birds similar in structure to, but of immensely 
greater size than, the cassowary—a notable feat in comparative 
anatomy which would entitle the Maori who performed it to rank 
with Owen or Cuvier—and, moreover, that the occurrence of bones 
under such conditions would lead them to hand down to their 
posterity exaggerated accounts of the appearance and habits of a 
mythical bird, of the mode of hunting and cooking it, of the nature 
of its flesh, and of other matters connected with it which could 
possess no possible interest for the numberless generations of the 
Maoris who could never have an opportunity of understanding 
such stories. 
It will, however, be observed in the sequel how naturally all that 
Mr. Stack has stated fits in with the information which I am about 
to communicate to you, and how needless it becomes to resort to 
improbable assumptions in order to apply “the allusions to the moa 
found in the Maori poetry and proverbs,” and the descriptions 
they give “of the appearance and habits of the birds,” and the 
