102 Transaciions.— Miscellaneous. 
History,” 8rd series, c. 16, p. 66, in the feathers of D. robustus. There are 
no barbules on the barbs near the apex of the feather, and the shaft is not 
produced beyond the barbs. In colour these feathers are reddish-brown, 
with a central longitudinal dash of dark brown towards the apex of the 
shaft. The down is brownish white. 
These two caves, therefore, have furnished two new kind of Moa 
feathers, making three distinct kinds that are now known. The green egg- 
shell is also quite a new type, approaching that of the Cassowary. 
With regard to the Rat; the fur is exactly similar in colour to that of a 
specimen in the Otago Museum, locality unknown, which is certainly only 
a variety of Mus decumanus, but the skull obtained by Mr. White is much 
smaller than that of any rat that I have seen. 
Art. VI.—Exiracts from a Letter from F. E. Mantye, Esq., relative to the 
Extinction of the Moa. [Communicated by T. Kirk, F.L.8.] 
(Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 4th October, 1875.] 
1. The Moas still existed in great numbers when the first Maori 
colonists arrived here. 
2. They were called Moa because the Maoris were acquainted, either 
by experience or tradition, with other large birds, which they called by the 
same name. 
8. There was little or no excitement in hunting the Moa, except such 
as a hungry man feels when hunting for a dinner. 
4. They were most stupid and sluggish birds ; and they were destroyed 
wholesale, by setting the grass and scrub on fire, and would quietly allow 
themselves to be roasted alive without moving. The natives killed in this 
way vast numbers more than they could use, or even could find, when the 
fire spread to great distances. 
5. One unusually dry summer, a Maori hunter set fire to the scrub, 
and it caused such destruction amongst the Moas, that from that time for- 
ward they were so scarce as not to be worth the trouble of hunting, and 
soon became extinct. 
6. The natives have a saying, “ as inert (ngoikae) as a Moa.” 
7. Periodically (I suppose once a year) the Moas threw off their 
sluggishness, and fought with great fierceness, when the Maoris took 
advantage of their disabled condition. 
8. When the Maoris first came into the northern part of the North 
Island, where the Moa was comparatively scarce, they soon found that, 
