1354 The Zoologist — September, 1868. 



flesh, and as they made no kind of resistance they really seemed to 

 ■exist for no other purpose than to be killed and eaten : the last 

 specimen of which we have any record was slaughtered in 1768. 



8. The Moa (Dinornis) died about 1800. Moa is the name given 

 by naturalists to certain very large birds which up to a comparatively 

 late date inhabited New Zealand, but there is grave doubt whether 

 the word in the native language had any such restricted application. 

 Professor Owen, to whom we are indebted for clearly establishing 

 five species of this bird, some of which possessed a frame as large as 

 that of an English dray-horse, derives his characters entirely from the 

 bones, no example of the living bird having yet been seen ; but the 

 remains of a specimen recently exhibited at a meeting of the Linnean 

 Society by Mr. Allis, of York, still retained portions of skin, feathers 

 and hair, which had undergone no change: some of those scientific men 

 to whom Mr. Allis's observations were addressed, thought the bird had 

 been living within ten years ; others extended the period to fifty 

 years; hut we canuot with any show of probability date its extinction 

 earlier than the year 1800. 



9. The Great Adk (A lea impennis) died in 1848. This penguin of 

 the arctic regions (gavefowl, auk, or great auk of ornithologists) was an 

 inhabitant of the arctic seas. It was a bird as large as a goose, but 

 totally incapable of flight, the wings having the appearance and office 

 of fins, and were used entirely in subaqueous progression. It was 

 formerly most abundant, and formed so favourite an article of food 

 with sailors that hundreds of ships from England, France, Spain, 

 Holland and Portugal, visited the coasts of Iceland, Faroe and New- 

 foundland, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, purposely to 

 provision their crews with the bodies and eggs of these penguins: in 

 addition to the supply required for immediate consumption, tons upon 

 tons of the bodies were salted for future use. One of the old voyagers 

 asserts that so easy was it to catch and destroy these helpless creatures 

 that in the space of a single hour thirty boat-loads of their bodies 

 could be obtained. Being unable to fly, or if on laud to run, the 

 only mode the penguin had of escape was by swimming or diving. 

 The last of the species was killed iu 1848. 



10. The Moho died in 1850. The moho (Notomis Mantellii) was 

 a large and beautiful bird of the rail tribe that formerly inhabited 

 New Zealand in profusion : its bones have been found in exactly the 

 same slate as those of the different species of moa, and its characters, 

 excepting the colour of the plumage, were accurately described by 



