104 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
talk over,—increased, from the fact of rewards being offered for bones, 
feathers (if any), and for information. 
Mr. Travers’ paper (compilation)* I should not care to notice separately, 
were it not for a letter contained therein, written by my good friend Mr. 
John White. (I could only wish, in this as in some other matters, that 
Mr. Travers would write of what he himself knows of things). Some 
portions of Mr. White’s letter astonish me. For Mr. White had lived at 
the North among the Ngapuhi tribes many years (just as I had), and to 
that information said to be obtained from them he adds more—even to a 
Moa which was “ killed” here in modern times “ near to Waipukurau !’’t 
where I have also been living nearly forty years!! and where I had con- 
versed with those old Maoris who saw Cook, but who knew nothing of the 
Moa! (I fear this Moa “ killed here near to Waipukurau” was much like 
mine which lived on Whakapunake, or that one mentioned by Dr. Dieffen- 
bach as said to be living on Mount Egmont!) Yet, not only. this last 
statement, but nearly all that Mr. White says is equally new tome. Now 
I recollect when Mr. John White came to New Zealand (a boy); it must 
have taken him some time to learn the language—before at all events he 
could talk clearly about such a highly recondite subject as the Moa, not 
being then particularly drawn thereto—and when talked of, I presume, 
such was only very occasionally, and then but slightly; whereas with me 
and others it was a matter of deep, extensive, and persistent enquiry 
extending over years. Remembering, also, how Dr. Dieffenbach and 
otherst laboured to glean something about the Moa in those same northern 
* Vide Trans, N. Z. Inst., Vol. VII., p. 58. 
t Vide my genealogical note on Hinetemoa, p. 95, ante. 
1 Here I should briefly mention a few of those scientific gentlemen who were also in 
the Bay of Islands and its neighbourhood during those years (omitting mere passing 
visitors), and whe all through their interpreters zealously sought after any remains of the 
Moa, now especially coming into prominence; viz., the Antarctic Expedition, under Sir J. 
C. Ross, R.N., with his several able naturalists (including Sir J. D. Hooker), who wintered 
there; the United States Exploring Expedition, under Commander Wilkes, U.S.N.; the 
several French ships of war and discovery, under Admiral Dumont D'Urville, Captain 
Cecille, Captain L'Eveque, and others; and many other private gentlemen, as Mr. Busby, 
Mr. Cunningham, the Rev. W. C. Cotton, and Dr. Sinclair, —but whose gains were nil! 
Through my residing in the Bay and close to the anchorage, I saw and knew them all, 
and of course had much conversation with them about the Moa, and its history. And 
last, though not least, there were the many “stores,” or traders settled on shore in various 
parts of the Bay, who had very extensive dealings not only with the shipping but with the 
Maoris; who; be it further observed, were now everywhere breaking soil in seeking after 
the new commercial product, Kauri resin. Those traders would have been sure to have 
picked up readily any specimens of Moa remains, or any fragments of its past history, 
—but they, too, got none! . 
