68 Transactions. — Misceltaneous. 



These natives further informed me that a Moa resided in a certain high 

 mountain in Te Whaiiti district, nearly five days' journey into the interior, 

 in a N.W. direction from the place where we now were, and that there I 

 should find people who had actually seen the animal. If I was little 

 inchned to beheve in the story of its existence before, I was much less 

 inclined to do so now ; however, as my route lay that way, I noticed this 

 information among my memoranda, determining to make every possible 

 enquu-y after it. 



Fifteen days after this I arrived at Te Whaiiti, the principal village of 

 that district, and not far from the residence of the second Moa. Here, 

 however, as before, the people had never seen a Mua, although they had 

 always heard of, and invariably believed in, the existence of such a creature 

 at that place. They, too, had not any bones in their possession ; thongh 

 such, they said, were very commonly seen after heavy floods. The following 

 day I passed close by the mountain where this Moa had resided for so many 

 years, but noticed nothing more than usual (although I availed myself to 

 the utmost of the use of my pocket telescope), save that this part of the 

 country had a much more barren and desolate appearance than any I had 

 hitherto witnessed. 



I returned in the autumn to the Bay of Islands, without gleaning any 

 further information relative to the Moa. 



It should, however, appear (fL-om information wiiich I have recently 

 received fi.'om the Kev. W. Williams), that, very shortly after my leaving 

 Poverty Bay, a Moa bone was brought him by a native, which he imme- 

 diately purchased. The natives in the neighbourhood hearing of a price 

 being given for such an article as a bone, which they had ever considered as 

 of little worth, were stimulated to exertion, and a great number, perhaps 

 more than a hmidred persons, were soon engaged in the field, actively 

 searching after Moa bones ; the result was that Mr. WiUiams soon had the 

 pleasure of receiving a large quantity of fossil bones, some of which were 

 of an enormous size, and in a good state of preservation. The bones, though 

 numerous, were not m any great variety, chiefly comprising such as I have 

 abeady mentioned, i.e., those of the femur and tihia, together with those of 

 the tarsus, the lower part of the dorsal vertebra, and a portion of the j^elvis. 

 Altogether the bones of nearly thirty birds, apparently of one species only, 

 must have been brought to Mr. Williams. From the great difference in the 

 sizes of some of them when compared with each other, Mr. Williams came 

 to the conclusion that the animal to which they once belonged must have 

 been very long-lived. Whilst, however, I do not perceive how far this 

 inference is to be correctly deduced from the mere difference in the size of 

 the bones, we know that longevity is common to very many of the feathered 



