418 Proceedings. 



This account of the features of the interior of Otago prior to its occupation 

 by Europeans goes to establish that the destruction of the original forest and 

 the destruction of the greater number of Moas must have been coincident, and 

 that the after-growth which sprung up to cover the surface on which the pros- 

 trate trees and Moa bones lay was still growing on the ranges over which Mr. 

 Garvie's party pushed their way, but that the burning on the terraces in the 

 dry basins had been so frequently repeated that the vegetation had been at 

 that date reduced to grass alone, and the Moa bones destroyed, just as has taken 

 place during the last fifteen years over the whole of the rest of the country. 



From the freshness of the timber lying on the ground, and the character of 

 the growth that had succeeded it, no very great period could have elapsed 

 since the last of the forest was destroyed ; but the process of destruction was 

 no doubt gradual, the heavy bush on the slopes of the hills being first reduced 

 to clumps and patches, then confined to gullies, and finally exterminated in 

 the same manner as can be observed in wooded parts of New Zealand at the 

 present day. 



But it must not be forgotten that a large area of the rolling country in 

 Otago was much too high ever to carry forest, and this was no doubt the 

 reason for the extraordinary profusion of Moas in this district, as they would 

 feed on these large open patches, which must have had an extent of some 

 thousand square miles. 



As a great deal has been said about the absence of any mention of the 

 Moa in Maori legends, I will read a note which Mr. Mantell has just received 

 from Sir George Grey, in reply to an inquiry on the subject, and in passing I 

 may state that Mr. Mantell himself has no doubt that the South Island 

 natives, when he first collected Moa bones with their assistance, were well 

 acquainted with their nature, and that they belonged to a bird that had 

 become extinct quite recently. 



In this note Sir George Grey says, " About the Moa I can only say that 



when I came to New Zealand the old natives always represented it to me as a 



bird well known to their immediate forefathers. They gave it its name ; it is 



not a fabulous animal with incoherent traditions, but was spoken of by them 



as the kiwi or other birds getting rare. They often spoke of its disappearance. 



Sometimes they told me it was possible there might still be living specimens 



in the Middle Island ; others asserted that it had been entirely destroyed. If 



you turn to page 9 of the Maori poems I printed in 1853 you will find in an 



old Maori poem this similitude taken from its disappearance, ' Ka ngaro, i te 



ngaro, a te Moa.' Any old native will explain this poem to you."* 



* Also furtlier reference in poems, p. 324, and at p. 74 of the Maori Proverbs. 

 Governor Weld writes to me that v,^hen he first explored the open country in the interior 

 of the Marlborough province the natives living on the coast warned him to beware of the 

 Moa, and if he met one not to get behind it as it could kick like a horse and would break 

 his 16' fg. 



