^4 Transactions. 



Art. 11.— On Moa Beds. By W. B. D. Mantell, F.G.S. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 6th November, 1872.] 



It may be in the memory of some members now present that at a previous 

 meeting during this session of our Society when the question of the antiquity of 

 Moa remains was raised, one of our members referred to them as having been 

 found in, or under, I forget which, a marine bed at Waingongoro, containing 

 a certain per-centage of extinct species of shells, alleging as his authority a 

 paper by my father contained in the Journal of the Geological Society of 

 London, founded on information received from me. It will be remembered 

 that I then expressed my surprise and regret that the paper or papers in 

 question should be susceptible of so erroneous an interpretation, and promised 

 to recapitulate for our Society all the facts relative to the occurence of the 

 Moa which had come under my observation, whether those facts had or had 

 not been previously recorded elsewhere. I am sorry that I did not qualify 

 this promise to such extent as should only have pledged me to its fulfilment 

 during our present session, should my other avocations permit— for, unfortu- 

 nately, I have not since that evening been able to devote the necessary time 

 and attention to the subject — and now that I have at last proceeded to some 

 extent in the examination of my old letters, reports, and memoranda, I find 

 that it will not be possible for me to compile a paper v/orthy of record without 

 devoting to it far more time than remains to us of our present session. Such 

 a paper, when completed^ as in great part it will consist of a repetition 

 of what has already been recorded, I do not regard as one which should 

 necessarily be printed in our Transactions, but it may nevertheless be of use 

 to future inquirers if deemed worthy of a place in our unprinted records. 



But although unable at this time fully to redeem my promise I may yet be 

 permitted, for the information of our Society, to note briefly the matter on 

 which I propose to treat in my paper now in course of preparation. I take 

 as its groundwork the notes of a paper which I read at the first meeting of 

 the New Zealand Society in 1851, in which I spoke of the various conditions 

 under which I had found remains of Dinornis and its contemporaries. In 

 that paper I mentioned as the most ancient specimen which I had seen a fossil 

 bone from a septarium of the blue clay of Onekakara, which, from its 

 structure, had, by high authorities in England, been attributed to a bird. 

 I have now grave doubts as to the nature of this bone, which I am disposed 

 to think is more probably reptilian. 



The tertiary deposit at Island Point, Waikouaiti, will next be noticed, 

 and from my letters, written at the time of my examination of it, I shall 

 endeavour to make its position and antiquity clear to the Society. From this 



