THE MO A AT HOME. 645 



natural than for them to have plunged into this spring. The water being of the 

 same temperature as the earth, would feel quite warm to them, and there being 

 no inducement for them to get out, as their food was cut off, they would settle in 

 deeper and deeper, and remain till numbness and hunger put an end to their suf- 

 fering. 



Hence I account for the bones being soundest on the top, as they would 

 have been deposited so much later. Hence, also, I account for there being no 

 bones of young birds on top, as it was long after incubation ceased that the old 

 family was gathered to its resting place. Hence I account for the absence of 

 egg-shells, as these deposits only took place in the winter season, which was nev- 

 er the breeding season with the birds. And by the trampling round of the birds 

 when in the spring, I account for the equal distribution generally of the gravel 

 amongst the bones; the trampling being the disturbing cause from which alone 

 some bunches of gravel from the gizzards escaped by being covered with a breast 

 bone or pelvis. 



Mr. Booth further adds : "If it is asked, why are there no bones in the 

 surrounding lagoons? my answer is, that as they are all (as far as I have examin- 

 ed)surface lagoons, they would have been frozen over when the cold drove the 

 birds into the spring water which never froze." 



This theory of Mr. Booth has much to recommend it, and we agree with 

 him that the theory of cold seems more plausible to account for the heaps of 

 bones at Lake Wakatipu, described by Dr. Hector, than the theory of fire which 

 the Doctor advances. The Moas would certainly have been quite as likely to 

 have sought shelter under a precipitous ledge of rocks to protect them from cold 

 snow storms as from sweeping fires, and would have been much more likely to 

 have reached such shelter. Notwithstanding, they perished in clusters. This 

 occurring periodically, perhaps for many years, would naturally account for the 

 many distinct skeleton heaps found by the Doctor in that place. 



Many many pages have been written in relation to the time the Moa became 

 extinct. That it was contemporary with man, and owes its final extinction to him, 

 is a fact accepted by all, but whether the old Moa hunters were the ancestors of 

 the present New Zealanders or, if not, whether the ancestors of the Maories hunted 

 the Moa at all, or inhabited the islands before the Moas were all gone, is still a 

 disputed question, with competent observers on each side. 



As bearing on the time when the Moa became extinct in that part of the 

 South Island, we quote again from Mr. Booth's paper, '.' I find below a certain 

 level that would leave the whole Maniototo plains under water, there are no Moa 

 bones to be found, with the exception of about the mouths of the burns coming 

 in from the hills, where the bones have been brought down by freshets." * 



* * " Now what does this fact point to? The only answer I can 



give is that the Moa was extinct in this locality when the whole Maniototo plains, 

 from the level spoken of, were yet under water." These statements by Mr. Booth 

 agree well with the position maintained so stoutly by Dr. Haast, previously quot- 

 ed, who is the strongest and most prominent defender of the theory of the early 



