Wellington Philosophical Society. 413 
this sharp-edged flakes of stone would be best adapted. I am inclined to 
think that the old Maori woman who officiated as cook at one of the Moa- 
hunters’ encampments would have found it a most trying task to dismember a 
Moa with a polished stone adze or a green-stone mere, even if she would 
profane so valued an implement for such a purpose; and I also think that 
unless the meat were very much overcooked the hungry Moa-hunters, however 
large their stock in trade of polished weapons might be, would prefer to pick 
up a sharp-edged stone to assist them in cutting slices from the ponderous 
drum sticks. The fact is that the adzes and other polished tools were no 
doubt then, as they are now, used as implements for tilling the soil and 
grubbing up fern root, and when occasion required, for felling a tree or a foe, 
and that for cutting up a pig or flaying a seal, a Maori, if he had no knife, 
would at the present day use sharp stone flakes, of which there are abundance 
about all Maori cooking-places, especially on the sea coast, where their services 
are most required. I may mention as a further confirmation of this view that 
among a very interesting collection recently brought by Mr. Henry Travers 
from the Chatham Islands, where no Moa bones have ever been found, there 
are many of these flakes, together with stone implements of all kinds, rude 
and polished, specimens of which are on the table for your inspection. 
The other evidence advanced by Dr. Haast respecting the absence of any 
traditions among the Maoris of the existence of this remarkable bird within 
the memory of the race is merely negative, and against which contrary evidence 
can be advanced. Dr. Haast quotes Mr. Colenso, who was well acqainted with 
the Maoris at the time when the former existence of the Moa first became known 
to Europeans, and who admits that they had a certain amount of indefinite 
information concerning the existence* of large birds like the Moa prior to that 
date, but attributes it to the traditions of the cassowary, which they had pre- 
served from the time of their original migration from Hawaiki. Dr. Haast also 
suggests, as a further source of their knowledge, that these were the bones of a 
* Polack, whose observations were made many years before the first discovery of 
Moa bones by Europeans, says :—‘‘ That a species of the Emu, or a bird of the genus 
Struthio, formerly existed in the latter (North) Island I feel well assured, as several large 
fossil ossifications were shown to me when I was residing in the vicinity of the East Cape, 
said to ohani been found at the base of the inland mountain of Ikorangi. The natives 
added that in times long past they received the tradition that very large birds had 
existed, but the scarcity of animal food, as well as the easy method of entrapping them, 
had caused their extermination.” And speaking of the South Island he states :—“‘I 
feel assured, from the many reports I received from the natives, that a species of Struthio 
still exists on that interesting (South) Island, in parts which, perhaps, have never yet 
been trodden by man. Traditions are current among the elder natives, of Atuas, covered 
with hair, in the form of birds, having waylaid former native travellers among the — 
wilds, vanquishing them with an overpowering strength, killing and devouring, e 
Polack’s ‘‘ New Zealand,” Lond., 1838, Vol. I., pp. 303, 307. 
