106 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



bird.''* This, however, is widely different, both as to date (of his first 

 sending to Professor Owen), and also as to the extent of his ^'Jind " at the 

 East Cape. He only specifies the, so-called, " toe," which is quite correct, 

 as I had myself stated in my early published paper ;f he says nothing here, 

 however, of " the fragment of bone ;" nevertheless, he goes much further — 

 actually saying that " he had found bones in that same kind of stratum at East 

 Cape and at Poverty Bay!" All I can say is : If so, why did he not make 

 them known ? Mr. Taylor was well-known not to be at all backward in 

 writing of every thing ; and while at the North he had plenty of time to 

 call his own. In this same letter to Professor Owen, (supra), Mr. Taylor 

 goes on to say : " The Kakapo or Tarepo is about the size of a tm-key, and 

 from its habits, nature, and other cu-cumstances, seems so closely to resemble 

 the Dodo, as to lead me to s^ippose it is the same," etc. 8. I well remember 

 Mr. Taylor (with whom I was for some time on the most intimate terms of 

 friendship),! complimenting me highly on his receivmg that part of the 

 " Tasmanian Journal of Science " containing my paper on the Moa. 

 [Those parts came regularly through my hands for distribution to the 

 members residing in New Zealand, owing to my living near to the anchor- 

 age.] Whenever Mr. Taylor came from the Waimate to the Bay, he always 

 called, and saw repeatedly all my collections, from which he obtained many 

 specimens. Briefly reviewing the past, I cannot but conclude that Mr. 

 Taylor's memory must have failed him when he gave his last statement at 

 Wellington, in 1872, in which, I think, many incidents of the past relative 

 to the Moa, are jumbled together as to date and sequence ; which, also, 

 from the Editor's note attached, seems to have been done rather hurriedly. 

 At present I make no further remark concerning the many strange (? erro- 

 neous) statements with which his published works on New Zealand abound ; 

 on a future occasion, however, I may have to notice some of them. 



4. Of a remarli made by Mr. Vaux, in his paper, " Oii the probable origin 

 of the Maori race." 



* " Zoological Transactions," Vol. III., part 4, p. 327. 



t Vide '• Tasmanian Journal," Vol. 11., p. 85 ; and Dr. Dieffenbacli also saw it. At 

 that time, and for several years before and after, I was residing at Paihia in the Bay of 

 Islands, while Mr. Taylor's home was at the Waimate, then a long day's journey inland. 

 I saw him on his return from the East Cape as he landed at Paihia, and with him tried 

 to match his " toe " (or claw) to my few bones of the 3Ioa, but it would not fit ; at that 

 time Mr. Taylor had none, neither had Mr. Williams. The so-called "toe," which was 

 very black and solid, resembled a bit of water-worn and rolled Obsidian more than any- 

 thing else ; yet it might have been a claw ; but, if so, greatly worn, and with dull and 

 rounded edges. I only saw it once and for a short time. 



J As a proof of this, see " Tasmanian Journal of Science," Vol. II., p. 244, for an 

 account of a fine fossil Terebratula {T. tayloriana), which I discovered far away in the 

 interior in 1841, and dedicated to him. 



