146 



PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE GENUS DINORNIS. 



Towards the north end of the bay a small brook discharges itself, from a swamp at the 

 foot of the hills in the rear : and at the mouth of the brook a short range of downs 

 runs along the beach to the southward, presenting a line of earthy cliffs, wasting away 

 and forming the shore as they fall down by the washing of the sea at the foot. These 

 cliffs are about from twenty-five to thirty feet in height, and nearly perpendicular. 

 The upper stratum of the chffs is formed of sand, and is about three feet in thickness, 

 producing the usual arenaceous shrubs, grasses, &c. Underneath, the Une of demar- 

 cation being very distinct, is a thick stratum orbed of sandy earth, sand predominating: 

 out of this substratum, about fifty or sixty yards south of the mouth of the brook, the 

 Moa's bones were exposed, projecting, in consequence of a late falling away of that 

 part of the cliff in which they were imbedded: they lay a foot or more beneath the 

 upper surface of the substratum. At the same spot there was a ' kapura maori,' or 

 native cooking fireplace, dug into the surface of the substratum, and full of stones that 

 had been once heated (to convey the heat to the food laid upon them), — and left, just as 

 similar cooking-places are left at the present day by the natives ; — about two feet from 

 which lay the bones. Close to the fireplace, and similarly imbedded, were bones of 

 smaller birds, and of fishes similar to those found at present in the sea adjacent; all, 

 including those of the Moa, having been evidently the remains of the food cooked 

 here at a former period and eaten, as my native attendant remarked, by the then native 

 inhabitants. A part of a leg bone, about two feet in length, apparently belonging to 

 the same leg as this femur', — the bone having been broken near the middle (probably 

 in order to be placed more conveniently over the fireplace), was also found close to the 

 femur. 



" The antiquity of these remains can only be arrived at by inference. How long it is 

 since the superficial stratum of sand now exhibited at the top of the clifts overlooking 



the sea, was formed by water and winds, is a matter of induction for the geologist. 

 Tlie sea is now undoing, and claiming the privilege of, former lacustrine or marine 



' It accords with the size of the tibia of the Diiiornis gracilis. — R. O. 



