Wellington Philosophical Society. 415 



some baptized natives, and, though they found no live Moa, they found some 

 huge bones, which they declared to be those of the true Moa. These had been 

 collected by the Datives apparently as a matter of course, for the manufacture 

 of fish-hooks, for he obtained such hooks. 



Mr. Colenso then proceeded himself to the mountains, and made ini^uiries 

 at a native village, where he \vas informed that the Moa still lived, though he 

 had not been seen. The bones were, however, stated to be common. Similar 

 inquiries in another district — Tiwhiti — also reported to be inhabited by Moas, 

 gave the same result, the natives proving their knowledge of the bones, and 

 that they belonged to the Moa, but without being able to afford any proof 

 that they were justified in believing that he still lived. These inquiries 

 stimulated the natives to search, so that in a short time the bones of nearly 

 thirty birds, all of one gigantic species, were obtained. 



After thus recounting his experiences, Mr. Colenso proceeds to infer that 

 the above knowledge of the existence of this bird must have been merely 

 traditionary ; but T do not think this a fair deduction, because Mr. Colenso 

 evidently hoped to be shown the live bird by the natives he employed, and 

 though the natives could not do so, they yet had no difficulty in finding the 

 bones for him in large numbers and in perfect preservation. It must also be 

 remembered that the natives with whom Mr. Colenso communicated on the 

 subject lived in a district which was the first settled by their ancestors, and 

 that, although the Moa may there have been extinct for many generations, 

 this is no reason why it may not even at that date have been existing in the 

 South Island for all they knew to the contrary. 



Having in a former communication on the subject referred to the interior 

 of Otago as probably the part of New Zealand in which the Moa survived 

 longest, and feeling anxious to discover the condition in which that district 

 was found by the first European explorers, I applied to my friend Mr. John 

 Buchanan, who is as distinguished for his power of accurate observation as he 

 is for the skilfully executed lithographs which illustrate our Transactions and 

 Natural History publications. 



Mr. Buchanan was attached to the first surveying — I may call it exploring 

 — party sent out by the Otago Government in 1856 into the district where 

 the best preserved Moa remains have since been discovered, the surveyor in 

 charge being Mr. Garvie, who was at the time in bad health, and did not long 

 survive the hardships the party underwent. 



They penetrated as far as what is now the Cromwell township, at the 

 upper end of the Dunstan gorge, or almost seventy-five miles west from the 

 coast in a direct line, the settled country, or rather that which had been 

 taken up as sheep runs, not extending at the time beyond the depression 

 between the Manguatua or Lammerlaw ranges, or a distance of twenty-five 



