66 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
thoroughly cooked with the twigs of the Koromiko, by supposing that it was the 
flesh of the Hawaikian Moa, and not of the Dinornis, that was meant. But, 
unless the Maoris saw the Dinornis alive, how did they know that the bones 
they found strewing the earth were the bones of a bird? The largest form 
of land animal life with which they were familiar on their arrival here was 
that of a bird which they called a Moa. Probably they found many 
skeletons of the Dinornis lying in such positions as clearly to indicate its 
form when alive. Being careful observers of nature, they would note the 
resemblance between the skeletons they found here, and the skeletons of the 
Moa with which they were acquainted in the islands, and would at once 
conclude that they were identical, and call them by the same name.” 
It will be observed that Mr. Stack does not go the same length that Dr. 
Haast does as to the time which has elapsed since the Moa became extinet, 
although he supports the Doctor in his opinion that its extinction preceded 
the arrival of the present race in these islands. 
But whilst he goes no further than this in supporting his leader’s 
** conclusions,” he calls upon us to accept a series of very remarkable pro- 
positions, which he makes on his own account :— 
Firstly, that the bones found on the surface of the plains in various _ 
parts of the North Island existed there before the introduction of the 
present race into New Zealand—an event which careful inquiry leads us to 
carry back to a very remote period. 
Secondly, that the present race must necessarily have rhipeated from 
‘some place in which either the Cassowary, or some other bird of the same 
kind existed, and was so commonly used as food that the very structure of 
its skeleton was matter of ordinary knowledge amongst the inhabitants. 
Thirdly, that, upon the discovery by the immigrants of the present 
race, of Moa bones on the surface of the plains, they would at once have 
assigned them to birds similar in structure to, but of immensely greater 
size than the Cassowary—a notable feat in comparative anatomy which 
would entitle the Maori who performed it to rank with Owen or Cuvier,— 
and, moreover, that the occurrence of bones under such conditions would 
lead them to hand down to their posterity, exaggerated accounts of the 
appearance and habits of a mythical bird; of the mode of hunting and 
cooking it; of the nature of its flesh; and of other matters connected 
with it which could possess no possible interest for the numberless genera-— 
tions of Maoris who could never have an opportunity of understanding 
such stories. 
It will, however, be observed in the sequel, how naturally all that Mr. 
Stack has stated fits in with the information which I am about to commu- 
nicate to you, and how needless it becomes to resort to improbable assump- 
