52 "'Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
of vegetable mould mixed with small, mostly angular pieces of rock, over- 
lapped them and took their place. This latter deposit is about one foot 
thick. Below both the kitchen middens and the somewhat contempora- 
neous deposit outside the cave, lies a layer of decomposed rock, a gritty bed 
enclosing a number of angular pieces of rock, the whole derived from the 
calcareous sandstone by which the valley is bounded. In this deposit the 
excavations were carried on to a depth of two feet, but without showing the 
least sign that it had either been disturbed or that traces of animal or 
human life had been entombed in it during its formation. The principal 
deposits accumulated under the rock-shelter may, faute de mieux, best be 
described as a dirt-bed, which doubtless owes its formation to the occasional 
presence of an autochthone race in the locality, and whose scanty kitchen 
middens give us a glance into the wandering life of its members. However, 
what appeared to me astonishing was the scarcity of the remnants of their 
food, the whole thickness of the bed (more than a foot) consisting of ashes 
and refuse, too minute to be recognised. The largest bed on the eastern 
side was about twenty-five feet long by ten feet broad; amongst it only a 
few objects were found. Amongst these some few pieces of moa bones were 
the most interesting, but they showed convincingly that they were portions 
of remnants of a meal, all the leg bones having been broken for the extrac- 
tion of the marrow, and resembling in every respect the fragments collected 
in the Moa Bone Point Cave, and at the Rakaia Encampment. These 
fragments, as far as I could recognise them, belonged to the two Meionornis 
species, birds of small size, and some of the swiftest runners of the Dinorni- 
thide. - Besides these bones, the presence of which proves occupation of the 
moa-hunters during their expeditions, and by which my suggestion that 
No. 9 may represent a moa gains in probability, there were a number of 
bones of smaller birds amongst the kitchen middens, of which those of the 
kiwi (Apteryx oweni) were-the most prominent. Other remains belonging 
to the animal kingdom, and showing that the moa-hunters had come from 
the sea coast, were a few marine shells, mostly Mesodesma nove-zealandie, 
the pipi of the Maoris. The presence of phalanges of a large fur seal, 
probably Arctocephalus cinereus, so far inland in such locality was rather 
surprising, unless we assume that they perhaps were used for playing some 
game. Besides these there were a few small pieces of wood, probably 
firesticks, some fragments of chert and flint, either cores or chips; several 
pieces of dark sandstone, of which one is a fragment of a polished stone 
implement. Another large piece of caleareous sandstone had evidently 
been chipped to a point. In the other somewhat smaller heaps on the 
western side, which have a length of about sixteen feet, with a greatest 
breadth of eight feet, also some few fragments of broken moa leg bones 
