118 Transactions. — Miscellaneo us. 



guislied geologists that stone-axe-using men followed the mammoth and the 

 reindeer through the forests of the Thames and the Humber, whilst these 

 rivers joined the Rhine in its course to the Northern Sea. 



My chief object in these notes is to draw attention to the interesting 

 memorial of by-gone times : we have in this hewn tree, nnder the sedimentary 

 and volcanic deposits at Auckland, a proof of the insecurity of hypotheses 

 based upon the idea of the alleged short period the Maori has been here 

 established. 



In the papers published in Vol. IV. of the "Transactions of the New 

 Zealand Institute," which contain such a large amount of most interesting 

 information regarding the remains of the giant birds, and the old umus in the 

 South Island, Dr. Haast, F.R.S., whilst he admits the occupation of the 

 country by man in remote times, urges that the Dinornis was exterminated by 

 the autochthones of New Zealand "long before the Maoris settled here." 



That such a race may have existed it is impossible to disprove, especially 

 if we consent to accept with him that the first Moa-hunters followed their 

 game overland from Foveaux Strait to the North Cape; but they were cer- 

 tainly not surviving when the progenitors of the present aboriginal inhabitants 

 arrived, otherwise their traditions would not be absolutely silent on the 

 subject. 



I may quite misunderstand Dr. Haast in presuming that he had changed 

 his opinion as to this part of the question, but he concludes his third paper 

 w ith a sentence which seems to indicate that he now thinks the Maori and the 

 jMoa-hunters were the same people. He says, " I have, as I believe, conclu- 

 sively shown that the native race who hunted and exterminated the different 

 species of Dinornis was a pre-historic people, and that the Maoris, the present 

 aboriginal inhabitants of New Zealand, i^rohahly the direct descendants of the 

 former, have not the least tradition about them." 



If the Maori be of the same. blood, the direct descendants of the Moa- 

 hunters, who were, he says, " a people in such a low state of civilization that 

 it is difficult to conceive they could have built canoes strong enough to cross 

 Cook Strait," and therefore he is the more inclined to believe they were all to 

 avail themselves of the overland communication, a most strange episode in the 

 history of the human race is presented for our consideration; indeed the 

 problem is distinctly proposed upon the following evidence by the same gentle- 

 man : — " I liavo," he says, " shown that long after the Moa-hunters had ceased 

 to exist, this locality continued to be a favourite camping ground of succeeding 

 generations, who in the comse of ages l^ecame more civilized, as shown by their 

 ])olished axes and more finislied stone implements." So that the descendants 

 of these savages, to whom the ap|)('llation of INIoa-huntors is given as long as 

 the great birds formed their princii)al Bupport, who fell into so low a state as 



