CoLENSo. — On the Moa. 63 



approach in similarity, are the Eotumah people and those of the Islands of 

 Niua and Vate in the New Hebrides (evidently colonies driven or migrated 

 from the East). The nimierals afford a good example of the language. The 

 dissimilarity between the Hawaiian and the other dialects proves in a measure 

 the originality of the former and the connection with each other of the 

 latter. 



Art. VI. — On the Moa. By W. Colenso, F.L.S. 



Plates IV. and V. 



[Read before the Haicke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 10th June, 1878, and IBth October, 



1879.] 



Foe some time past I have been thinking of bringing this hiteresting subject 

 before you, and that for several reasons. 



1. Because this animal is purely a New Zealand one, and not only so, 

 but it is, I think I may safely say, to be classed among the animal wonders 

 of the world. 



2. Because here in Hawke's Bay (Napier) but little is known of it — 

 nothing indeed when compared with Christchurch, Wellington, and other 

 towns, Avhere also fine specimens of its entu-e skeleton may be seen in the 

 Museums.* I believe that I may fairly infer, that not a few of you present 

 have not yet heard any account of it — never yet seen any of its bones, save 

 these which I now lay before you, t much less an entire mounted skeleton, 

 such as are in those photographs, now on the table, procured from Christ- 

 church. 



* Here in Hawke's Bay, during the whole term of my residence (over 35 years), but 

 very few bones of the Moa have been found, and those singly, scattered, and broken. 

 Nevertheless, on one occasion, about twenty years ago, the men at work on the Middle Eoad 

 (between Havelock and the entrance to the Kaokaoroa Valley), in making a cutting in the 

 side of a hill, found, either the whole skeleton of a large Moa, or the bones of several 

 all together, deeply embedded among or under the limestone. I did not hear of it until 

 some time after, and, on my visiting the spot, I found that the whole of the bones had 

 been smashed up and mixed with the clay and limestone from the cutting where they were 

 found ; in fact many of them fell to pieces on being exposed to the sun and air. I 

 obtained, however, a few small pieces of the shank of a tibia and of a tarsus, which were 

 of remarkable thickness, I think the thickest by far that I had ever seen. They had 

 been partly converted into a kind of lime, and were wholly as white as the impure lime- 

 stone in which they were found, and scarcely at first sight distinguishable from it. A few 

 years ago a fine specimen of a tibia, in fah preservation, measuring two feet eight inches, 

 was found near Patangata : this I now have. 



t These were, a pair each of Femora, Tibife, and Tarsi, all from one ilfoa, found fn situ, 

 with other bones, at Poverty Bay, about thirty years ago. The tibia measure two feet five 

 inches each, and the whole are in excellent preservation. 



