418 Proceedings. 
This account of the features of the interior of Otago prior to its occupation 
by Europeans goes to establish that the destruction of the original forest and 
the destruction of the greater number of Moas must have been coincident, and 
that the after-growth which sprung up to cover the surface on which the pros- 
trate trees and Moa bones lay was still growing on the ranges over which Mr. 
Garvie’s party pushed their way, but that the burning on the terraces in the 
dry basins had been so frequently repeated that the vegetation had been at 
that date reduced to grass alone, and the Moa bones destroyed, just as has taken 
place during the last fifteen years over the whole of the rest of the country. 
From the freshness of the timber lying on the ground, and the character of 
the growth that had succeeded it, no very great period could have elapsed 
since the last of the forest was destroyed ; but the process of destruction was 
no doubt gradual, the heavy bush on the slopes of the hills being first reduced 
to clumps and patches, then confined to gullies, and finally exterminated in 
the same manner as can be observed in wooded parts of New Zealand at the 
present day. 
But it must not be forgotten that a large area of the rolling country in 
Otago was much too high ever to carry forest, and this was no doubt the 
reason for the extraordinary profusion of Moas in this district, as they would 
feed on these large open patches, which must have had an extent of some 
thousand square miles. 
As a great deal has been said about the absence of any mention of the 
Moa in Maori legends, I will read a note which Mr. Mantell has just received 
from Sir George Grey, in reply to an inquiry on the subject, and in passing I 
may state that Mr. Mantell himself has no doubt that the South Island 
natives, when he first collected Moa bones with their assistance, were well 
acquainted with their nature, and that they belonged to a bird that had 
become extinct quite recently. 
In this note Sir George Grey says, “ About the Moa I can only say that 
when I came to New Zealand the old natives always represented it to me as a 
bird well known to their immediate forefathers. They gave it its name ; it is 
not a fabulous animal with incoherent traditions, but was spoken of by them 
as the kiwi or other birds getting rare. They often spoke of its disappearance. 
Sometimes they told me it was possible there might still be living specimens 
in the Middle Island ; others asserted that it had been entirely destroyed. If 
you turn to page 9 of the Maori poems I printed in 1853 you will find in an 
old Maori poem this similitude taken from its disappearance, ‘Ka ngaro, i te 
ngaro, a te Moa.’ Any old native will explain this poem to you.”* 
* Also further reference in poems, p. 324, and at p. 74 of the Maori Proverbs. 
