DR. MANTELL ON THE DISCOVERY OF NOTORNIS. 71 



and two species of Kiwi-kiwi, namely Apteryx Australis and Ap. Oweni ; the latter very 

 rare bird is now added to the collection of the British Museum. 



Mr. Walter Mantell states, that, according to the native traditions, a large Rail was 

 contemporary with the Moa, and formed a principal article of food among their an- 

 cestors. It was known to the North Islanders by the name of " Moho," and to the 

 South Islanders by that of " Takahe';" but the bird was considered by both natives and 

 Europeans to have been long since exterminated by the wild cats and dogs, not an in- 

 dividual having been seen or heard of since the arrival of the English colonists. That 

 intelligent observer, the Rev. Richard Taylor, who has so long resided in the islands, 

 had never heard of a bird of this kind having been seen. In his ' Leaf from the Natural 

 History of New Zealand',' under the head of " Moho," is the following note : " Rail, 

 colour black, said to be a wingless bird as large as a fowl, having a long bill and red 

 beaks and legs; it is nearly exterminated by the cat: its cry was ' keo, keo.'" The 

 inaccuracy and vagueness of this description prove it to be from native report and not 

 from actual observation. To the natives of the pahs or villages on the homeward route, 

 and at Wellington, the bird was a perfect novelty and excited much interest. I may 

 add, that upon comparing the head of the bird with the fossil cranium and mandibles, 

 and the figures and descriptions in the ' Zoological Transactions ' (pi. 56), my son was 

 at once convinced of their identity ; and so delighted was he by the discovery of a living 

 example of one of the supposed extinct contemporaries of the Moa, that he immediately 

 wrote to me, and mentioned that the skull and beaks were alike in the recent and fossil 

 specimens, and that the abbreviated and feeble development of the wings, both in their 

 bones and plumage, were in perfect accordance with the indications afforded by the 

 fossil humerus and sternum found by him at Waingongoro, and now in the British 

 Museum, as pointed out by Professor Owen in the memoir above referred to. 



It may not be irrelevant to add, that in the course of Mr. Walter Mantell's journey 

 from Banks' Peninsula along the coast to Otago, he learnt from the natives that they 

 believed there still existed in that country the only indigenous terrestrial quadruped, 

 except a species of rat, which there are any reasonable grounds for concluding New 

 Zealand ever possessed. While encamping at Arowenua in the district of Timaru, the 

 Maoris assured him that about ten miles inland there was a quadruped which they called 

 Kaureke, and that it was formerly abundant, and often kept by their ancestors in a 

 domestic state as a pet animal. It was described as about two feet in length, with 

 coarse grisly hair ; and must have more nearly resembled the Otter or Badger than the 

 Beaver or the Ornithorhynchus, which the first accounts seemed to suggest as the pro- 

 bable type. The offer of a liberal reward induced some of the Maoris to start for the 

 interior of the country where the Kaureke was supposed to be located, but they re- 

 turned without having obtained the slightest trace of the existence of such an animal ; 



' Published at Wellington, 18-18. 



