McKay. — On a Deposit of Moa Bo-nes near Motanau. 411 



appeared to have been disarticulated before being finally deposited, as no 

 two bones were found wliich lay in such a position as to warrant their 

 reference to the same individual moa. Most of the tibial bones were not 

 found lying in a horizontal position, but inclined at all angles and so locked 

 in the deposit one by the other, or by the other larger bones of the leg, that 

 the extraction of one of them almost invariably involved the destruction of 

 one or more lying contiguous to it. 



Although at first sight the bones appeared as a confused mass, yet there 

 proved to be some order in the mode of their occurrence. In the eastern 

 end of the paddock most of the metatarsal bones were found. Tibiaa 

 were most abundant in the middle part, and femora at the western end. 

 Where the bed was thickest the pelvic bones formed its upper part and were 

 universally in a crushed and highly decomposed condition. Vertebra, toe 

 bones, and occasionally bones of the head, were found from top to bottom 

 of the bed. In the clay bed which at the western end of the paddock over- 

 laid the bones, vertebrae and toe bones were of frequent occurrence, and in 

 this horizon was found a metatarsus with the toe bones complete. The 

 metatarsus was lying horizontally in the clay bed, while the toes were sunk 

 in the clay in a vertical position. 



In the comparatively small area of this paddock, which was less than 

 30 square feet, there must have been present skeletons or portions of skele- 

 tons of no less than thirty birds. To all appearance the deposit is a most 

 extensive one, the thickest part of it extending north-east from the northern 

 bank of the creek ; how far it extends in this or in the opposite direction on 

 the southern bank of the creek, indications at the surface afford no means of 

 determining. 



On the southern bank of the creek the bone-bed is not so thick, and, 

 following the water-course upwards, it passes into a bed of peaty lignite with- 

 out bones, but a few feet beyond this bones are present in the lignite where 

 it crosses the water channel, and is exposed at the base of a low cliff 

 bounding the upper end of a deep gulch, which is rapidly being cut back 

 towards the source of the creek. Followed till disappearing under the 

 northern bank, the bones in the lignite increase from an occasional one 

 till they form a bed about 8 inches thick, the lignite increasing to about 

 double that thickness, but being without bones in its upper part. In the 

 peaty lignite the bones proved quite as much crushed, and much more 

 fragile than where they were imbedded in the clay ; in fact, the vertebrse 

 and other bones of open texture were little more than discernible in the 

 lignite, while the leg bones were, though apparently in good condition, so 

 brittle that scarcely any could be got out without breakage. As there 

 appeared to be no difference in the species imbedded in the lignite and in 



