92 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



immediately, I coukl not stay to visit the locality at that time, but I 

 instructed the servant I had with me, before returning to Christchurch with 

 the horses, to go there in order to collect a number of specimens. 



They consisted of Moa-bones partly broken, mostly belonging to Palajy- 

 teryx and Euryapteryx^ and a number of chipped flint implements of the same 

 character as those collected during my examinations of the Moa-hunter 

 encampment near the mouth of the Eakaia, and I had no doubt that a careful 

 survey of that locality would yield most important information upon the 

 manner and period of extinction of our former gigantic avifauna. 



I therefore at the end of November of this year, during a stay at the 

 Waitaki, paid a visit to Shag Point, when, with the assistance of men and 

 tools, kindly furnished by Mr. Rich, I was enabled to make such excavations 

 that a thorough insight into the whole of the beds could be obtained. My 

 best thanks are due to Mr. F. D. Rich, on whose property these extensive 

 deposits of human origin are situated, for his permission to examine the same, 

 as well as for the ready assistance afforded me. 



^ The valley of the Shag River, which for the last four or five miles has 

 nearly a due west to east direction, is, on the average, half a mile broad, being 

 bounded on both sides by steep banks. The currents of the sea travelling from 

 the south to the north have thrown across the valley at its mouth a spit 

 consisting of marine sands in its lower, and of blown sands in its higher 

 portion. These deposits, about 60 feet high at the commencement of the spit, 

 where they repose against the rocks forming the southern banks of the river, 

 gradually decrease in altitude until, near their northern termination, they are 

 overflown by the tides, the river channel proper running here along the 

 northern rocky banks. Inside this spit a small estuary is formed, stretching 

 several miles up the river, and which forms here an impassable barrier to 

 animals wishing to cross to the other side. It is evident, as the country 

 consists on the southern banks of low rolling downs with rich soil, that they 

 must have offered a fine feeding ground to the Moas in past ages, and at the 

 same time a remarkably favourable hunting field to the aborigines, who, without 

 doubt, driving them towards the apex of the deltoid space formed by the sea 

 coast and the southern banks of the Shag River, slaughtered the huge birds 

 wholesale on and near the spit, afterwards holding there their feasts; and, as 

 I shall show further on, having such an enormous amount of game, they used 

 only the main portion of each carcass for tlieir meals. 



Tlie spit, as before observed, highest at its southern end where it joins the 

 downs, is here about 200 yards broad, gradually narrowing to about 50 

 yards where the vegetation ceases, and the waves of the sea overflow it 

 occasionally. 



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