Freip.—Notes on some Ancient Aboriginal Caches near Wanganui. 229 
meet with similar deposits elsewhere, may have their attention directed to 
such points, as may aid those who take interest in such matters, in arriving 
ab a correct conclusion respecting them. I think it would be well if persons 
who take such interest, and who reside near the coast, should make a point 
of examining their coast line soon and occasionally, as most of the deposits 
near here have been disturbed by animals, or thoughtless visitors, and the 
whole of them will, in a few years at furthest, have fallen into the sea, 
through the wearing away of the cliffs, as I have little doubt that many 
have already fallen. 
One fragment of a jaw which Mr. Hodge picked up contains a molar - 
tooth, and is, he thinks, human. The supposed animal jaw he thinks 
is that of some canine; which would indicate that dogs of some kind 
existed in the Colony long before Captain Cook’s time. 
Art. XIX.—Stray Thoughts on Mahori or Maori Migrations. 
By R. C. Barstow. 
[Read before the Auckland Institute, 80th October, 1876.1 
Two papers of great interest on the subject of “ Mahori or Maori Migra- 
tions,” and on * The Probable Origin of the Maori Race," have lately 
appeared—the former from the pen of Mr. W. H. Ranken ;* the latter, 
by Mr. Vaux.t 
Mr. Ranken's paper relates chiefly to the supposed earlier migrations 
of the race in tropical regions, and is very entertaining, embodying many 
valuable facts and traditions, which summarizing, he has fixed upon the 
Samoan or Navigator Group, containing amongst others the islands of 
Savaii and Upola, as the secondary starting point of the migrations which 
have peopled so many islands in the Pacific Ocean, spreading over a vast 
space of some 60 to 70 degrees both of latitude and longitude, comprising 
within its limits both this country and the Sandwich Isles. 
Mr. Vaux, on the other hand, almost confines his subject to migrations 
to New Zealand, entering very minutely into the ethnologieal and linguistie 
affinities of our natives with those of other islands. Both these writers 
agree in maintaining that the inter tropical migrations were made from west 
to east, in the teeth, as they admit, of the prevailing wind and current. 
I have ventured to throw together a few facts and arguments, partly 
as criticizing, partly as supplementing, the above-mentioned papers. I 
will take Mr. Ranken's first. 
* In the “ New Zealand Magazine” of July, 1876 
t Of Baliol College, Oxford, published in “ The Trans. N. Z. ies ," Vol. VIII. 
