Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



shelter would certainly have been used by them for a camping ground, had 

 not other causes prevented them.* The Moa-bones found together in the sands 

 of the same bed were doubtless portions of one bird, which accidentally had 

 been buried in them. On the other hand, no Moa-bones of any kind wei'e 

 discovered in the overlying beds, only shells and bones of mammals, fishes, and 

 smaller birds, as in the kitchen middens of the shell-fish eaters. Moreover, 

 these successors of the Moa-hunters did not know that they were camping and 

 feasting on an old burial ground, which, according to Maori usage, is a most 

 'sacred spot, and thus would certainly not have been inhabited by the new 

 comers, except from ignorance of its former use. 



When designating the newer occupants of the locality shell-fish eaters, in 

 contradistinction to the older, the Moa-hunters, I wish to observe that this 

 does not exclude the possibility, or even probability, of the latter having also 

 used the mollusks of our seas or rivers as food, either from want of their 

 favourite game or from any other reasons. 



It would also be rash to conclude from the occurrence of polished stone 

 implements with the skeletons under review that they must have belonged 

 to a comparatively modern or even civilised race, because even races in a very 

 low state of civilisation, who, to judge from their physical features and rude 

 dialect, belong to the earliest races of mankind, possess highly-polished stone 

 implements. I wish here only to point to the aborigines of Australia, who, 

 without doubt, have been using such tools for numberless ages. 



I will not here open up the question if the earlier inhabitants of New 

 Zealand, may they have been Moa-hunters or shell-fish eaters, were of 

 Melanesian or Polynesian origin, as this point can and will doubtless be 

 settled by a careful examination of human skeletons found in ancient graves, 

 but I wish to transcribe from the second edition of "Te Ika a Maui," by the 

 late Rev. Richard Taylor, himself a strong supporter of the theory that the 

 Moa became only extinct in quite recent times, a few passages showing that 

 from what he considers reliable Maori tradition, the Hawaiki immigrants not 

 only found when they landed on the coast of New Zeiiland a black (Melanesian) 



• AVhcn treating in my paper on the Moa-hone Point Cave of the agglomerate, or 

 lowest bed lying upon the marine sands, I alhided to tlie remarkable absence of the same 

 in tlie centre of tlie main cave between the four piles forming an oblong square. In 

 order to cxi)lain this absence I ventured to offer the suggestion that a hut might have 

 stood here Ijcfore and during the time the agglomerate was formed, but I added also 

 several reasons which nuide this very improbable. Since then, my friend Dr. L. Powell 

 has offered an explanation, which from its simplicity, and moreover meeting all the 

 rcfiuirements of the case, recommends itself to us as being the best solution of the 

 ([UcHtioM. Dr. Powell suggests that a whata or food ston; resting on the four posts had 

 been placed in the cave, which has also here its greatest altitude. Thus also the fact of 

 the agglomerate thiiming out all around is easily explained, because the pieces of rock 

 falling from the roof would sometimes roll a little below the whata, and thus form a 

 somewhat irregular edge. 



