McKay.—On a Deposit of Moa Bones near Motanau. 411 
appeared to have been disarticulated before being finally deposited, as no 
two bones were found which lay in such a position as to warrant their 
reference to the same individual moa. Most of the tibial bones were not 
found lying in a horizontal position, but inclined at all angles and so locked 
in the deposit one by the other, or by the other larger bones of the leg, that 
the extraction of one of them almost invariably involved the destruction of 
one or more lying contiguous to it. 
Although at first sight the bones appeared as a confused mass, yet there 
proved to be some order in the mode of their occurrence. In the eastern 
end of the paddock most of the metatarsal bones were found. Tibia 
were most abundant in the middle part, and femora at the western end. 
Where the bed was thickest the pelvic bones formed its upper part and were 
universally in a crushed and highly decomposed condition. Vertebre, toe 
bones, and occasionally bones of the head, were found from top to bottom 
of the bed. In the clay bed which at the western end of the paddock over- 
laid the bones, vertebre and toe bones were of frequent occurrence, and in 
this horizon was found a metatarsus with the toe bones complete. The 
metatarsus was lying horizontally in the clay bed, while the toes were sunk 
in the clay in a vertical position. 
In the comparatively small area of this paddock, which was less than 
80 square feet, there must have been present skeletons or portions of skele- 
tons of no less than thirty birds. To all appearance the deposit is a most 
extensive one, the thickest part of it extending north-east from the northern 
bank of the creek; how far it extends in this or in the opposite direction on 
the southern bank of the creek, indications at the surface afford no means of 
determining. 
On the southern bank of the creek the bone-bed is not so thick, and, 
following the water-course upwards, it passes intoa bed of peaty lignite with- 
4 out bones, but a few feet beyond this bones are present in the lignite where 
| it crosses the water channel, and is exposed at the base of a low cliff 
' bounding the upper end of a deep gulch, which is rapidly being cut back 
4 towards the source of the ereek. Followed till disappearing under the 
. northern bank, the bones in the lignite increase from an occasional one 
4 till they form a bed about 8 inches thick, the lignite increasing to about 
| double that thickness, but being without bones in its upper part. In the 
Peaty lignite the bones proved quite as much crushed, and much more 
fragile than where they were imbedded in the clay; in fact, the vertebrae 
and other bones of open texture were little more than discernible in the a 
lignite, while the leg bones were, though apparently in good condition, so 
brittle that scarcely any could be got out without breakage. As there = 
peared to be no difference in the species imbedded in the lignite and in 
