1 02 Trmisactiotis. — Miscellaneous, 



mention Dr. E. Dieffenbacli, the Naturalist to the New Zealand Company. 

 This gentleman was here in the years 1839-1841, and I had the pleasure of 

 being acquainted with him while he stayed in the Bay of Islands, where, for 

 some time, he lived next door to me. He saw and "overhauled" all my 

 specimens (even then rich in shells, and insects, and ferns, and in geological 

 samples), and many conversations we had respecting the Moa. In his 

 work, in two volumes, on " New Zealand," he twice mentions the Moa, but 

 only in a very slight way ; in fact, he, then, could not say any more, for he 

 did not himself collect a single Moa bone, although he was industrious in 

 obtaining all kinds of natural specimens. He saw, however, what few 

 broken bones I had at that time, obtained from near the East Cape through 

 the Christian Maori teachers, who had been sent there by us after our early 

 visit made there in January, 1838. Dr. Dieffenbacli thus alludes to the 

 Moa in his work : — " The natives (of Taranaki) could not understand what 

 induced me to ascend Mount Egmont ; they tried much to dissuade me 

 from the attempt, by saying that the mountain was tapu ;* that there were 

 ngarara (crocodiles) on it, which would imdoubtedly eat me ; the mysterious 

 bird Moa, of which I shall say more hereafter, was also said to exist there, 

 But I answered that I was not afraid of those creations of their lively 

 imagination," etc. And again, in writing of " special changes in New 

 Zealand," he says : — " If a geological cause, such for instance as a diminu- 

 tion of the size of the island, attended by an alteration of climate and a 

 diminution in the means of subsistence, has contributed to the extmction of 

 the struthious Moa in New Zealand, and of the Dodo in the Mauritius, it is 

 no less sure that, since New Zealand began to be inhabited by its aboriginal 

 race, the agency of man has effected a part of that eternal fluctuation in the 

 organic world, the knowledge of which has been one of the most important 

 results of modern science,"! And this is all he says ! Some time after, 

 however (in 1845), we find him reading a paper " On the Geology of New 

 Zealand," before " the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science," J in which he says: — "That he has examined into all the 

 traditions respecting the existence of the Moa, or great bird of New Zealand, 

 and concludes that it has never been seen alive by any natives of New 

 Zealand ; the rivers in which its bones have been found flow between banks 

 from thirty to sixty feet high, and, as they are continually changing their 

 course, the remains of the Moa may have been derived fi-om tertiary 

 fluviatile strata." § (Of course I cannot help thinking the Doctor was 

 indebted to my pubhshed paper on the Moa for this information, as it is 



* Lit., strictly forbidden, or preserved. 



t " Travels in New Zealand," Vol. I., pp. 140 and 417. 



\ At their fifteenth meeting, held June 21, 1845. 



§ From the ' Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science," Vol.. II., p. 451. 



