Taytor.—First Discovery of Moa Remains. 99 
koromiko (Veronica) thickets from which they were driven and killed by 
setting the thickets on fire ; hence originated the saying, Te koromiko te nakau 
i tunu ai te moa (the Veronica was the tree which roasted the Moa). The 
- koromiko when burnt emits a kind of rezin from its bark, which looks like 
_grease, hence the origin of the saying, as all suppose the Moa to have been a 
very fat bird, which I should think was very questionable. When I next 
visited Waingongoro, expecting to carry off another load of Moa bones, I 
found, to my surprise, that they had disappeared. I afterwards heard that 
Mr. Mantell had passed that way after me, and had cleared the place of all 
worth taking. I seldom, however, travelled over. the sandhills bordering the 
coast without finding some remains of the Moa, especially on those near the 
Wanganui Heads. On one occasion I found a large number of fine specimens, 
and being unable to take them with me on my journey I made a pile of them, 
carefully covering them up, and marking the spot, intending to remove them 
on my return, but when I came back I found every one had disappeared, some 
one else having found the prize and secured it. 
One morning the chief John Williams brought me nearly a perfect skeleton 
of a very large Moa, which only wanted the skull to make it complete. The 
wind had blown away the sand from the old level, and\upon it he found the 
bones, laid just as it had died, with the rings of the wind-pipe, and a heap of 
quartz pebbles which had once been in its gizzard. Thinking it highly 
probable a further search would enable me to find the skull, I rode to the 
spot and found my conjecture correct ; the wind had removed the sand from 
a larger surface since my native friend had been there, and the first sight was 
a very gratifying one, there was the entire skull stretched out and partly 
imbedded in the clay soil, with the upper and lower bills quite complete. I 
found when I attempted to remove it that it was in a most friable state. 
T succeeded, however, at last, and most carefully wrapped it up and placed 
it in the crown of my hat. I had scarcely remounted my horse before the 
animal began to buck-jump most violently; in an instant I found myself 
sprawling on the ground, with my treasure scattered about in innumerable 
fragments. Though in great pain I managed to collect some of the largest 
„pieces, and amongst them the extremities of the upper and lower mandibles, 
which were afterwards sent to Professor Owen. 
So abundant were Moa bones in former years that whenever a sandhill 
was shifted by the wind, and the old surface exposed, it was generally found 
to be strewed with the remains of the Moa, but the grand place to find them 
used to be in the shell-heaps—our Maori middens,—which form some of the 
most conspicuous objects on our western shores, where they stand out in 
bright relief amongst the sandhills. In the scarce months, which used to be 
called mangere mumu, the lazy grumbling season, the natives used to flock 
