CoLENso. — OntheMoa. 107 



In justice to myself — if not also to Professor Owen and to Mr. Kule — 

 I had intended noticing a statement made by Mr. Vaux in his above- 

 mentioned paper, in which he says that "Bishop Williams and the Eev. E. 

 Taylor, in 1839, were the first to discover the remains of the Moa ;"* but, 

 owing to the great length of my paper, I am obliged to omit doing so ; 

 merely saying here that I deny it. My grounds for so speaking will be 

 found in what I have already written upon it {supra). Mr. Vaux, evidently, 

 had not seen my early-published paper on the Moa, neither those of 

 Professor Owen, and of Dr. Mantell. There are also other matters of high 

 importance in Mr. Vaux's paper respecting the Maoris (for which he has 

 mentioned me) ; to them, I hope to return ere long. 



5. Of sundry early English published scientific testimonies. 



In conclusion, I may be permitted to call attention to the following 

 testimonies in connection with the foregoing ; and I do so the more readily 

 because they were all spontaneously given by gentlemen of the highest 

 standing in their respective scientific pm^suits, and written, and published, 

 and spoken of publicly (in lectures, etc.) by them at a very early period. 

 I mean : — 



(1.) SirW. J. Hooker, K.H., etc., etc., the very eminent Botanist, formerly 

 Director of the Eoyal Gardens at Kew, who, in the London Journal of 

 Botany, for January, 1844, Vol. III., p. 3, mentions approvingly my paper 

 on the Moa, and the bones I had sent through him, in 1842, for Professor 

 Owen. 



(2.) Professor Owen, F.E.S., etc., etc., the eminent Naturalist and 

 Osteologist, who — both in his papers on the Moa (Dinornis), " Zoological 

 Transactions," Vol. III., part 4, p. 327, — and, also, in his kindly and of his 

 own accord, republishing in the " Annals and Magazine of Natural History," 

 1844, Vol. XIV., p. 81, my early paper on the Moa, — has borne a similar 

 testimony. 



(3.) Dr. Mantell, P.E.S., etc., etc., the celebrated Geologist and 

 Osteologist, has also done the same, and that, too, at various times ; 

 particularly in his work entitled "Petrifactions and their Teachings," pp. 93, 

 94, and 487 ; and also in his very able and lucid paper (doubly interesting 

 to us here in New Zealand), " On the Fossil Eemains of Birds, collected in 

 New Zealand by Mr. Mantell of Wellmgton," published in the " Quarterly 

 Journal of the Geological Society," February, 1848, Vol. TV., pp. 225-241 

 (passim), where Dr. ManteU says : — " I do not deem it necessary to enlarge 

 on the question whether the Dinornis and Palapteryx still exist in New 

 Zealand ; on this point, I would only remark that Mr. Colenso, who was 

 \h.e first observer that investigated the nature of the fossil remains with due 



' * Trans. N. Z. Inst., Vol. Yin., p. 11. 



