412 Proceedings. 
flora of the country by the rapid spread of fires. It is true that fires probably 
originated in some districts in the North Island from volcanic eruptions, and 
that the large open tracts in the vicinity of Taupo where there are pumice — 
drifts, containing charred wood, are probably of an earlier date than the first 
arrival of the Maori race, but in the South Island there are no recent 
- voleanos to account for the spread of fires, and there is no other cause to 
which the conversion of what has evidently been within a modern period 
forest land, first into scrub and finally into grass land, can be attributed, 
except artificial fires. 
The co-existence of man with the Moa, and the fact that these gigantic 
birds were hunted and consumed as food, was long ago recognized, in the first 
instance I believe by Mr. Mantell, but the question of whether it was by the 
ancestors of the Maori race now inhabiting these islands was never distinctly 
raised till last year, when Dr. Haast did so in the first of the series of papers 
on the subject to which I have referred. 
In this communication Dr. Haast, led by his extensive reséarches and the 
study of a magnificent collection of Moa bones, and of the ancient native 
cooking-places, which are plentiful on the east coast of the province of Canter- 
bury, adopts the view that the extinction of the Moa was effected by a race 
of men altogether distinct from the Maoris, who belonged to the paleeolithic 
period, and had passed away long before the Maori settled here. 
The evidence upon which this hypothesis is based is of two kinds. First 
the nature of the implements that were used by the early Moa-hunters, as 
Dr. Haast terms them, and secondly the supposed ignorance either direct or 
traditionary, which the Maoris display of the former existence of the Moa. 
There are other arguments brought forward, but as they are not so direct in 
their bearing on the question I will not allude to them on the present occasion. 
The description given of the cooking-places in which Moa bones have been 
found by Mr. Mantell, Dr. Haast, and other observers, does not indicate any 
difference in the habits of the Moa-hunters from the ordinary mode of life of 
the Maoris even at the present day ; the only supposed peculiarity being the 
occurrence in the ovens of rough stone flakes with cutting edges instead of the 
polished implements of stone which we are accustomed to see now in the 
hands of the natives. 
Tt is hardly necessary to point out, as has been already done repeatedly, 
that evidence of this kind cannot be considered to establish a difference of 
race, for the uses to which the two kinds of stone implements could be applied 
must have been totally different. It has never been alleged that before the 
time of Captain Cook’s visit the natives were in possession of any cutting 
instruments made of metal; and yet as they ate seals, porpoises, and other 
fleshy animals, they must have had some means of cutting them up, and for 
