﻿70 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



miles above the homestead, in a cliff about 100 feet liigh, water-worn moa 

 bones occur near the water's edge, amongst the post-pliocene shingle ; and in 

 another locality, about twenty feet from the summit of the cliff, in a peaty 

 layer, a nearly complete skeleton was obtained. The hill-sides above Glenmark 

 station are covered with silt, looking like a lacustrine formation, which, in 

 many cases, is also studded with moa bones. I may here observe that since 

 my first excavations in Glenmark, and after the ai-ticulation of the different 

 Dinomis skeletons in the Canterbury Museum, I have been so fortunate as to 

 obtain single skeletons of almost every one of these species, some of them 

 nearly complete, the bones lying still in situ, which, in every instance, have 

 fully confirmed the correctness of these articulations. Moa bones are found 

 abundantly in other localities, such as fissures or caves in limestone rocks, the 

 neighbourhood of which appears to have been a favourite resort of the 

 Binomis, and the hills formed of drift-sands, which, from their nature, are 

 well adapted to the preservation of the osseous remains of these gigantic birds. 



We come now to another and more difficult question in connection with 

 their extinction. It would appear, at least at first sight, that the different 

 species of Dinomis, and even some of the largest, must have been living in 

 comparatively recent times, owing to the fact that moa bones have been found 

 on the ground, amongst the grass on the plains, or between rocks and debris in 

 the mountains. I must confess I have never observed any in svich positions, 

 except when it could be easily proved that they had been washed out either 

 by heavy freshes from older deposits in cliffs, along river beds, or by the dis- 

 appearance of the luxuriant virgin vegetation, consisting of high grass or 

 bushes, the soil having been laid bare, so that its upper portion would speedily 

 be washed away by the rain water. I have been repeatedly informed that in 

 the neighbouring province of Otago, some plains, when first visited by 

 Europeans, were strewed with moa bones. This account reminded me of a 

 passage in Darwin's '-Journal of a Naturalist," pages 167 and 168, where he 

 mentions having observed on the plains of Patagonia, near the banks of the 

 Santa Cruz river, masses of bones perfectly intact, of the Guanaco or wild 

 Llama, which, he supposes, must have crawled before dying beneath and 

 amongst the bushes, as it were to a common burial ground ; and that distin- 

 guished naturalist adds the following pertinent remark : — " I mention these 

 trifling circumstances, because in certain cases they might explain the 

 occurrence of a number of uninju.red bones in a cave, or buried under alluvial 

 accumulations, and likewise the cause why certain animals ai-e more commonly 

 imbedded than others in sedimentary deposits." 



However, on further thought, I do not consider that a similar explanation 

 could be offered for the occurrence of the moa bones on the plains, as I am 

 led to believe that their exposure may be more properly traced to the agency 



