96 Transactions. 
In my account of this spot I shall be guided by the letters which I wrote 
at the time of my sending home the collections of which our president has 
suggested that I should furnish extracts. 
The only other important discovery which I shall have to notice, is the 
old kainga at the stream now known as Awamoa, a name given by me instead 
of its original name of Te Awakokomuka, to prevent confusion with other 
streams of the latter name in the district. This kainga, which we found 
in 1852, afforded further unmistakable proof of the co-existence of man with 
the Moa. The bones and egg-shells of Dinornis and its kindred, mixed with 
remains of every available variety of bird, beast, and fish used as food by the 
aborigines, being all in and around the umus (or native ovens) in which they 
had been cooked, Although my collection from this place reached England in 
1853 it remained unopened until after my arrival there in 1856, when I caused 
it to be conveyed to the crypts of the British Museum, and there unpacked 
it in the presence of the great authority on our gigantic birds, Professor Owen. 
With the exception of two small collections which were selected for me by 
Professor Owen, and which I gave, one to the Museum of Yale College, U.S., 
and the other to that of the Jardin des Plantes, the whole of this collection is 
now in the British Museum. The fragments of egg-shells from these umus 
varied in size from less than a quarter of an inch of greatest diameter to three 
or four inches. These, after careful washing, I had sorted, and having, with 
some patience, found the fragments which had originally been broken from 
each other and fitted them together, I succeeded in restoring at least a dozen 
eggs to an extent sufficient to show their size and outline. Six or seven of 
the best of these I gave to the British Museum after their purchase of the 
collection ; one is in the Museum of the College of Surgeons ; the rest, 
including one very beautiful egg with a polished ivory-like surface, are still in 
my ownership somewhere in England. Some idea of the labour entailed by 
this attempt to rehabilitate eggs may be gathered from the fact that several 
of those restored consisted of between 200 and 300 fragments. I may add 
that in the markings, size, and so forth, of the eggs (making allowance for 
the alteration of the former toward the ends of the eggs) I made out about 
twenty-four varieties, of which I have specimens, 
At a meeting of the Zoological Society a discussion which followed the 
reading of Professor Owen’s first paper on’ this collection, first showed 
me how unprepared were the scientific men at home to admit the co-existence 
of man with the Moa, but at its conclusion I conceive that doubts on that 
head were removed from the minds of most of those present. 
With the exception of a slight notice in the New Zealand “Spectator” of 
1853 no attempt at a detailed account of the Awamoa kainga has, so far as I 
remember, been yet published. I therefore hope that this portion at least of 
