54 PROF. OWEN ON THE EXTINCTION OF DINORNIS. (Jan. 27, 
their cooking-places and kitchen-middens, covering more than forty 
acres, near the mouth of the River Kakaia, where I have made ex- 
tensive excavations. The results, which I shall publish as soon as 
some other work which I have in hand will allow me, will be consi- 
dered not uninteresting, as they give us not only an insight into the 
habits of a primitive people who hunted (and, I may say, extermi- 
nated) the Dinornis, but have also brought to light their rough 
stone implements. These are either pieces of hard sandstone broken 
off from large boulders in a peculiar manner, or made of flint or, 
rather, hard siliceous rocks, chipped very roughly, and generally the 
exact counterpart of those found at Amiens. Some of them are, 
however, chipped only on one side, the other side being perfectly 
flat. I have drawings made for publication of some of the most 
characteristic ones. The cooking-places or ovens are built like those 
of the Maories, and are now covered by from 6 to 8 inches of silt 
and vegetable soil. 
«But what is still more striking is the state in which the Moa 
bones are found. JI collected from some of the kitchen-middens all 
the bones, and brought them to Christchurch to sort them; and 
the result was a very interesting one; in every respect it coincided 
with that obtained by the excavations at Glenmark. If you will 
look at the list in the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute’ 
(vol.i. p. 89), you will observe that by far the greater number of bones 
belonged to D. caswarinus (45), the next to D. didiformis (37), and 
then to D. ecrassus (14). The same proportional occurrence is 
also found in the case of the kitchen-middens—D. casuarinus pre- 
dominating, and D. didiformis and D. crassus following in numbers. 
There are also some bones of D. elephantopus (13) and of a small 
Palapteryx ingens (belonging to several specimens), but none of D. 
giganteus and D. robustus. 
«‘ The leg-bones are all broken, the tibize on both sides near the 
end, so as to get out the marrow or the contents of the hollow of the 
bone. At the same time both ends are generally scooped out, so as 
to suggest at once that the Moa-hunters used a flint flake as a spoon 
to get the animal eatable matter out of those parts of the bone which 
were more difficult to break. The middle portion of the tibize is 
nearly always broken into small fragments; and I found near the 
kitchen-middens several large flat stones and also others of an oblong 
form, which had doubtless been used for the purpose of smashing 
them. Femora and metatarsi of specimens belonging to D. casua- 
rinus and D. didiformis are partly broken in the centre, partly on 
both sides; but those of D. crassus and D. elephantopus, owing to 
their pachydermal form and the narrow hollow inside, are generally 
only broken in the centre, and in many cases are still intact, as not 
offering sufficient inducement for taking the trouble. The skulls are 
invariably scooped out from below to get at- the brain. The pelvic 
and sternal bones are always in fragmeuts. 
“‘There were also bones of the native Dog, of Seals, Sea-gulls, 
and the tympanic bones of several species of Whales amongst them, 
