76 Transactions, — Miscellaneous. 



ou the family to ■wliicli it may be allied, by a consideration of tbe etymology 

 of its name. The word Moa, whence is it derived? I confess, I know not 

 any New Zealand word from which it may be supposed to have derived its 

 origin. And this will seem the more remarkable when we consider that a 

 very great number of New Zealand appellatives are not only derived and 

 easily traceable, but are also generally highly expressive of some action or 

 quality of the thing itself; chiefly, too, is this to be observed when such 

 action or quality is peculiar or uncommon. But in the Moa, the most 

 uncommon animal New Zealand has ever produced (especially in the esti- 

 mation of a native), we have a cognomen which seems an entire exception 

 to the common rule ; for, as far as I understand it at present, it has, in 

 reference to this immense animal, no meaning whatever. Further, it may 

 not be amiss also to notice, en passant, that it is of rare occurrence in the 

 language to find anything bearing so very short an appellation as the bird 

 in question. In the Friendly, Society, and Sandwich groups, the term 

 " Moa" has been, I believe, invariably given by the natives of those islands 

 to the domestic cock, and used as the proper name for that animal by the 

 missionaries there. The New Zealander, in relatmg his fabulous account of 

 the Moa, almost invariably said it was like a " tikaokao," i.e., a cock (they 

 having given the cock that name from its crow, which to them sounded 

 like those letters when drawn out and pronomiced after their manner), and 

 that it was adorned with wattles, etc. Without, at all, at present, entering 

 into the question as to what country or countries the existing race of New 

 Zealanders emigrated from to these islands, the popular belief that at 

 least a portion of them is of Malay origin, is, I think, in connection with 

 the name of this bird, worthy of notice ; for whilst we know the term 

 "Moa" is used to denote the cock in the Friendly Islands and other 

 groups, it is only in the isles of the Indian Archipelago that the cassowary 

 (Casuarius casoar, Briss.j is to be found ; and this bird, too, is " heavy 

 and stoutly built," and the only one of the whole family of StrutMonidce 

 possessing wattles ; for, according to Cuvier, it "has the skin of its head 

 and top of the neck naked, of an azm-e-blue and fiery-red colour, with 

 pendent caruncles like those of the turkey, and is the largest of all bu"ds 

 next to the ostrich."* May we not, I would ask, be allowed to conjectm-e, 

 that in that now long-past period, when the forefathers of the present race 

 of aborigines first landed on these shores, a few of those New Zealand birds 

 might still be found in the most secluded and mountainous retreats, having 

 hitherto escaped the repeated inroads of the original inhabitants ; or, we 

 may suppose that the bones only were seen, and identified to belong to a 

 bird by those new-comers, to which, from their real or supposed resem- 



* Vide Cuvier " Eigne Animal," Class Aves, Gen. Casziarius, 



