58 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
available forty, or, better still, fifty years ago, I believe that even Marquesan 
and Hawaiian would have exhibited a list of distinct sounds, represented 
by letters ; in other words, an alphabet which would have been little inferior 
to that of modern Italian. Anyhow, as I have already stated, the letter t 
would not have been banished absolutely from Hawaiian, and ksubstitutedin 
its place, because a certain number of words occur in which the distinction 
between these two letters is not very rigidly preserved. I cannot help, also, 
thinking that, to express with perfect truth the shades of sound recognisable 
by a musical ear in Polynesian, it would be necessary to add letters from 
another language besides Latin, as, for instance, the @ for the English th. 
Art. Il.—Notes on the Extinction of the Moa, with a review of the discussions on 
the subject, published in the ** Transactions of the New Zealand Institute.” 
By W. T. L. Travers, F.L.S. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 6th September, 1875.] 
You are doubtless aware that a considerable amount of discussion has 
taken place, during the last few years, amongst scientific enquirers in New 
Zealand, as to whether the Dinornide became extinct before or since the 
occupation of the Islands by the present native people, and as the question 
at issue is one of great interest, I have been induced, in consequence of 
having lately received important information on the subject, which I pro- 
pose to give in the sequel, to review this discussion. 
In the year 1871 Dr. Haast, who leads the discussion on the first side, 
read three elaborate papers on the subject before the Philosophical Institute 
of Canterbury, in the latter of which he sums up the conclusions to which 
he professed himself justified in arriving, as follows :— 
“Ist. The different species of Dinornis or Moa began to appear and 
flourish in the post-pliocene period of New Zealand. 
‘2nd. They have been extinct for such a long time that no reliable 
traditions as to their existence have been handed down to us. ; 
“3rd. A race of Autocthones, probably of Polynesian origin, was co- 
temporaneous with the Moa, by whom the huge wingless birds were hunted 
and exterminated. 
“4th. A species of wild dog was cotemporaneous with them, which 
was also killed and eaten by the Moa-hunters. 
** 5th. They did not possess a domesticated dog. 
