72 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



in the mountaiuons districts of the Middle Island ; in fact, we know that 

 several large birds, well known to the natives, though hitherto unknown to 

 science, live on the high hills in the North Island. But I cannot persuade 

 myself to receive one man's relation as perfectly correct in every particular, 

 against the united testimony of those persons from among the different 

 tribes of the Northern Island with whoin I have conversed on the subject.* 



In thus, however, disposing of that part of the question relative to the 

 present existence of the Moa, we have still to enquu'e, at what period of 

 time is it probable that this bkd existed ? And here, I think, we have to 

 consider : first, the situation in which the bones are found ; and, second, 

 any additional evidence which native tradition may be able to afford us. 



The Moa bones, as far as I have been able to ascertain, have hitherto 

 been only found within the waters and channels of those rivers which dis- 

 embogue into the Southern Ocean, between the East Cape and the South 

 Head of Hawke's Bay, on the East Coast of the Northern Island of New 

 Zealand. And, as I have before observed, they are only, when wanted, 

 sought for after floods occasioned by heavy rains, when, on the subsiding of 

 the waters, they are found deposited on the banks of gravel, etc., in the 

 shallowest parts of the rivers. These rivers are, in several places, at a 

 considerable depth below the present surface of the soil,f often possessing a 

 great inclination, at once perceived by the rapidity of their waters. They 

 all have more or less of a delta near their mouths, h-om a slight inspec- 

 tion of which it is known that their channels have, in those places at 

 least, considerably changed. The rocks and strata in these localities 

 indicate both secondary and tertiary formations ; consisting, the former of 

 argillaceous schist, sandstone, conglomerate, greensand, etc. ; the latter of 

 clay, marl, calcareous tufa, sand, gravel, and alluvial deposits. The real 

 depositum, however, of the Moa bones is not certainly known. For my 

 own part, I am inclined to believe, from a consideration of the depths of 

 the channels of the rivers, and of the class and situation of the prevailing 

 rocks and beds of strata in those parts, that they will be found lying em- 

 bedded in the upper stratum of the secondary, or the lower strata of the 

 tertiary formation ; and not, I think, improbably in beds of shingle, the 



* See Note D, A.ppendix I. 

 ■\ The rivers at Waiapu and Turanga have high banks on either side, even where 

 the country is a plain of rich alluvial deposit. Near Mangaruhe, and also near Whataroa 

 (three days' journey inland from Poverty Bay), I descended the almost perpendicular 

 banks of the river which falls into the Wairoa, where they were from thirty to sixty feet in 

 height. This height they apparently preserved as far as the eye could trace them from 

 the summits of the neighbouring hills. The Wairoa is a large river which disembogues 

 into Hawke's Bay. 



