72 i Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 
in the mountainous districts of the Middle Island ; in fact, we know that 
several large birds, well known to the natives, though hitherto unknown to 
science, live on the high hills in the North Island. But I cannot persuade 
myself to receive one man’s relation as perfectly correct in every particular, 
against the united testimony of those persons from among the different 
tribes of the Northern Island with whom I have conversed on the subject.* 
In thus, however, disposing of that part of the question relative to the 
present existence of the Moa, we have still to enquire, at what period of 
time is it probable that this bird existed? And here, I think, we have to 
consider : first, the situation in which the bones are found ; and, second, 
any additional evidence which native tradition may be able to afford us. 
The Moa bones, as far as I have been able to ascertain, have hitherto 
been only found within the waters and channels of those rivers which dis- 
embogue into the Southern Ocean, between the East Cape and the South 
Head of Hawke's Bay, on the East Coast of the Northern Island of New 
Zealand. And, as I have before observed, they are only, when wanted, 
sought for after floods occasioned by heavy rains, when, on the subsiding of 
the waters, they are found deposited on the banks of gravel, etc., in the 
shallowest parts of the rivers. These rivers are, in several places, at a 
considerable depth below the present surface of the soil,! often possessing a 
great inclination, at once perceived by the rapidity of their waters. They 
all have more or less of a delta near their mouths, from a slight inspec- 
tion of which it is known that their channels have, in those places at 
least, considerably changed. The rocks and strata in these localities 
indicate both secondary and tertiary formations ; consisting, the former of 
argillaceous schist, sandstone, conglomerate, greensand, etc.; the latter of 
clay, marl, calcareous tufa, sand, gravel, and alluvial deposits. The real 
depositum, however, of the Moa bones is not certainly known. For my 
own part, lam inclined to believe, from a consideration of the depths of 
the channels of the rivers, and of the class and situation of the prevailing 
rocks and beds of strata in those parts, that they will be found lying em- 
bedded in the upper stratum of the secondary, or the lower strata of the 
tertiary formation; and not, I think, improbably in beds of shingle, the 
* See Note D, Appendix I. 
+ The rivers at Waiapu and Turanga have high banks on either side, even where 
the eountry is a plain of rieh alluvial deposit. Near Mangaruhe, and also near Whataroa 
(three days' journey inland from Poverty Bay), I descended the almost perpendieular 
banks of the river which falls into the Wairoa, where they were from thirty to sixty feet in 
height. This height they apparently preserved as far as the eye could trace them from 
the summits of the neighbouring hills. The Wairoa is a large river which disembogues 
into Hawke's Bay. 
* 
