Wellington Philosophical Society. ^ 419 



But I fear that I have dwelt on this subject at too great a length, being 

 led away by the desire to remove the impression that the Moa was limited to 

 a palaeolithic pariod, which is characterized by Sir C. Lyell as a period marked 

 by a diiference in the surface features from those now prevailing, or even that 

 a palaeolithic period can be recognized at all in New Zealand, as such an 

 hypothesis, if incorrect, as 1 believe it to be, would greatly mislead those who 

 are investigating the already complicated subject of the migrations of the 

 branches of the human race. 



That the Moa lived and flourished during far more remote periods there 

 can be no doubt, but I think the discovery of the bones of the neck of one of 

 the largest species, with feathers, skin, and muscles attached, which is now in 

 the Museum, far outweighs all the arguments that can be advanced, and as 

 Professor Owen pointed out in his first published paper on the subject, shoM's 

 that the Moa belongs to the same very recent period as the Dodo. I must not 

 neglect to notice that in his latest paper on the subject Dr. Haast has modified 

 his first hypothesis so far as to say that the Maoris are not a fresh migration, 

 but are the direct descendants of the Moa-hunters, and falling back on the 

 supposed inferiority of the early stone implements as proof that the Maoris 

 had attained a higher degree of civilization, he argues that a great period of 

 time must have elapsed to account for that improvement ; but against this 

 may be urged that until the Maoris acquired knives from the Europeans they 

 must have cut with flakes of stone with sharp edges, whatever their state of 

 relative advancement may have been, as they possessed no other implements 

 to supply their place. The evidence of the absence of the highly finished 

 weapons from the cooking ovens which Dr. Haast describes at the Rakaia 

 camping place, while they abound on the surface of the ground, appears to me 

 to prove only that the final destruction or departure of the Maoris from that 

 locality was rather sudden, and that in consequence valuable articles were left 

 lying about which were not likely to be found in cooking-places that were in 

 common use. Besides, it is certainly probable that the Moas near the sea 

 coast on the Canterbury plains would be among the first to be destroyed, and 

 that this particular encampment may have been used from a very early date, 

 perhaps a century before the final extermination of the Moa elsewhere. On a 

 i-evision of the whole question I do not think that the evidence which has 

 been adduced proves that the Moas were not existing in Otago in considerable 

 numbers less than 200 years ago, and that a few might not have survived to 

 within seventy or eighty years ; but I am glad to be able to state that 

 Professor Owen intends to reproduce in a collected form his valuable series of 

 memoirs on the Moa, and he will, I hope, take the opportunity to review the 

 different hypotheses which have been advanced on this interesting subject. 



As relating to this discussion, I should call attention to the description of 



