60 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 
conclude that the bones have, in some instances, never been buried under 
the soil, but remained lying on the surface where the birds died. I can, 
however, not conceive that Moa bones could have lain in such exposed 
positions for hundreds, if not thousands, of years without decaying entirely. 
Even if we assume that the birds have been extinct for only a century or 
80, it is inconceivable that the natives, who have reliable traditions extending 
back for several hundred years, and of many minor occurrences, should 
leave no account of one of the most important events which could happen 
to a race of hunters, namely the extinction of their principal means of 
existence. At the same time, the pursuit of these huge birds to a people 
without fire-arms or even bows and arrows, although they might have 
possessed boomerangs or a similar wooden weapon, must have been so full. 
of vital importance, excitement, and danger, that the traditions of their 
hunting exploits would certainly have outlived the accounts of all other 
events happening to a people of such character. 
“The Rey. J. W. Stack, with whom I repeatedly conversed upon this 
subject, fully agrees with me that the absence of any traditions places an 
almost insurmountable obstacle in the way of our supposing that the Moa 
bones found lying on the plains or hill-sides are of such recent origin as 
their position might at first suggest.”’ 
Further on in the same paper (p. 73), he says— 
‘Tt has been the fashion to assert that the present native inhabitants of 
New Zealand, the Maoris, are the race who have hunted and exterminated 
the Moa, and there are even natives who declare that their fathers have 
seen the Moa and eaten its flesh. If such assertions could be proved, our 
researches would have been much simplified. It will, therefore, be my duty 
to examine the data upon which such statements rest, and to bring, in my 
turn, what I consider overwhelming evidence to the contrary, namely, that 
the forefathers of the Maoris not only have neither hunted nor exterminated 
the Moa, but that they knew nothing about it.” 
In support of the positions thus taken, Dr. Haast quotes not only the 
Rey. Mr. Stack, but also the Rev. W. Colenso and Mr. Alexander Mackay, @ 
Native Commissioner, all of whom, he tells us, possessed excellent oppor- 
tunities of obtaining accurate information upon this and other subjects 
connected with the present New Zealanders. 
With regard to the Rey. Mr. Stack, he informs us that that gentleman 
did mention the existence, amongst the Maoris, of a proverb relating to the 
Moa, namely, ‘He Moa Kaihau,”’ translated, ‘(a wind-eating Moa,” in 
allusion to a supposed habit of the bird of keeping its mouth open when 
running against the wind, (a habit, by the way, which exists in the Ostrich, 
