1870.]} MESSRS. MARSHALL ON THE CAPITONID. 117 
Kakapo (Strigops), a bird now extinct in the districts where I found 
the ovens, exactly as the Moa is. 
“I have seen many hundreds of old ovens undistinguishable from 
those in which Moa-bones were found; and in some of these cases 
the natives were able to tell me the circumstances under which way- 
parties or travellers had formed these very ovens many years since. 
I would observe that the native word ‘Moa’ is a Polynesian word, 
and the very word which new comers to the islands of New Zealand 
would have been likely to apply to the Dinornis, if they had found 
it in existence there. The natives all know the word Moa as de- 
scribing the extinct bird; and when I went to New Zealand twenty- 
five years ago, the natives invariably spoke to me of the Moa as 
a bird well-known to their ancestors. They spoke of the Moa in 
exactly the same manner as they did of the Kakapo, the Kiwi, the 
Weka, and an extinct kind of Rails in districts where all these birds 
had disappeared. 
‘Allusions to the Moa are to be found in their poems, sometimes 
together with allusions to birds still in existence in some parts of 
the islands. For instance, in page 9 of ‘Ko nga Moteatea, me nga 
Hakirara o nga Maori’*, you will find a man speaking of the death 
of all his sons, who says, ‘Ka ngaro, i te ngaro, a te moa’ (‘ they 
have disappeared as completely as the Moa’); and, again, at page 324 
of the same work you will find in another poem as follows :-— 
*¢ Kua rongo ’no au, 
Na Hikuao te Korohiko 
Ko te rakau i tunua ai te Moa.’ 
“‘That is, ‘I have heard, indeed, that from Hiknao was the Koro- 
hiko, the tree or shrub with which the Moa was cooked.’ 
“Probably the meaning is, that the boughs, leaves, and flowers 
of that tree were used to cover up the flesh of the Moa in the oven 
where it was cooked. In the same poem the Weka (Ocydromus 
australis) is immediately afterwards alluded to. 
‘From these circumstances, and from former frequent conversations 
with old natives, I have never entertained the slightest doubt that 
the Moa was found by the ancestors of the present New-Zealand 
race when they first occupied the islands, and that, by degrees, the 
Moa was destroyed and disappeared, as have been several other wing- 
less birds from different parts of New Zealand.” 
The following papers were read :— 
1. Notes on the Classification of the Capitonide. 
By C. H. T. Marswatt and G. F. L. Marswatu. 
In examining the classification of this family for our forthcoming 
monograph, a few points have occurred to us which we should wish 
to bring to the notice of ornithologists, 
We have primarily grouped the Capitonidee into three well-defined 
* New Zealand: printed by Robert Stokes, Wellington, 1853. 1 vol. 8vo. 
