Mantell. — Oti Moa Beds. . 95 



deposit it will be remembered that some of tlie most perfect and interesting of 

 the early discovered Moa bones were obtained — the collection of Mr. Earle, 

 the pair of feet found by Tommy Chaseland, some crania which I think were 

 given to Sir George Grey, and many other specimens of great interest were 

 obtained from this bed. 



After noting several other places in which I formerly found these remains, 

 under conditions which satisfied me that if contemporary with man these 

 particular birds had not met their death through his agency, I shall pass to 

 those probably more recent deposits which, from the circumstances under 

 which they occur, were to my mind clearly accumulations of the refuse of 

 human meals. 



Of these, the first which met my observation was the very interesting sand- 

 flat of Te E-angatapu, near the mouth of the Waingongoro, a locality for Moa 

 bones first discovered, I believe, by a member of our Society, the Eev. 

 Richard Taylor, to whom I feel that some apology is due for the grievous 

 poaching which I committed upon his manor. 



This sandflat occupies a break in the coast-line cliffs through which it is 

 evident that the river, at no geologically remote period, found its way to the 

 sea ; but the sand with which the gap is filled has no connection with the 

 bed of finely laminated sand which is described as occurring in the neighbour- 

 ing cliffs. It was in excavating in the old surface of this sandflat that I 

 found the umus of the old inhabitants, and sundry articles of their use, such 

 as fish-line weights, a pa^it paraoa, etc., and quantities of obsidian chips. 

 Some of the larger bones too had, it seemed to me, been broken while fresh ; 

 the fractured ends offering a glazed surface instead of the rough, porous 

 appearance of such as were broken in our attempts to extricate them. At 

 this place, too, fragments of the egg-shells were first found : some much 

 worn by what was mistaken by English geologists for the effect of water- 

 carriage, but which was really attributable to the action of drift-sand. The 

 result of my exploration of this flat — coupled with the tradition of the 

 resident natives that it had been the first settled dwelling-place of their 

 ancestors on their arrival from Hawaiki, and the Maori traditions concerning 

 the existence of the Moa and the use of it by them as food, of its bones for 

 implements, and of its feathers as ornaments — was a tolerably clear convection 

 to my mind that the birds, whose relics I found there, had been killed, cooked, 

 and eaten by those ancestors. This conviction I strove to impress upon my 

 home correspondents, but not with complete success, for they, supported by 

 the opinion of a gentleman of higher scientific and official position in the 

 colony, could not divest their minds of the idea that, occurring as these did 

 in the surface of the material which filled an old river channel, they must 

 have been water-borne from some inland locality. 



