Travers.— Notes on the Eatinetion of the Moa. 73 
a favourite article of food with those hunters, from the frequency of the 
occurrence of egg-shells in the ovens, and this circumstance very naturally 
suggested the idea that the extermination of the bird may have been 
brought about by this cause. The nests would be easily discovered, as the 
country was generally open and grassy, with patches of low scrub at the 
foot of the hills. The encampment I have referred to was in the midst of 
a clump of Rorokio, burnt patches of which were found on the low grounds 
in many parts of the interior when the first European settlers occupied the 
country. Chert knives, some of which bore signs of having been used, have 
been found scattered over a large area of ground in the vicinity of the 
encampment, and I should add that several polished stone axes have been 
found on or near the surface of the ground in the immediate neighbourhood. 
Upon the whole, my observations have led me to different conclusions from 
those of Dr. Haast, Mr. Colenso, and the Rev. Mr Stack. The former 
admits, in referring to certain researches of Mr. Mantell in the North 
Island, that, ‘if further investigations of these interesting localities would 
prove, beyond a doubt, that really the bones of man, moa, and dog, with 
flint chips and true Maori implements, occur together, and have not been 
mixed up accidentally, the present indigenous race having chosen the same 
favourable spots for their camping ground as the Moa-hunters did before, 
the question, so far as the Northern Island is concerned, would soon be 
settled.’ I contend that, so far as the interior of this Province is con- 
cerned, an analysis of the Puke-toi-toi cooking places has proved that the 
Moa has lived in comparatively recent times, and that the Moa-hunters 
were, in all probability, the progenitors of the race now inhabiting the 
island.” 
Sir George Grey, in a letter to the Zoological Society of London, in 
1870, wrote as follows :—* 
“ The natives all know the word ‘ Moa,’ as describing the extinct bird, 
and when I came to New Zealand, twenty-five years ago, the natives 
invariably spoke to me of the Moa as a bird well-known to their ancestors. 
They spoke of the Moa in exactly the same manner as they did of the 
Kakapo, the Kiwi, the Weka, and an extinct kind of Rail, in districts where 
all those birds had disappeared. Allusions to the Moa are found in their 
poems, sometimes together with allusions to birds still in existence in some 
parts of the island. From these circumstances, and from former frequent 
conversations with old natives, I have never entertained the slightest doubt 
that the Moa was found by the ancestors of the present New Zealand race 
when they first occupied the islands, and that by degrees the Moa was 
* Quoted by Dr. Haast, “ Trans., N. Z. Inst.,” Vol. IV., p. 100. : 
