﻿7 2 Transactions. — Miscellan eon s. 



subject, fully agrees with me tliat tlie absence of any traditions places an 

 almost insurmountable obstacle in the way of our supposing that the moa bones 

 found lying on the plains or hillsides are of such recent origin as their position 

 at first might suggest. Some moa bones, broken or otherwise injured, but 

 excavated in good condition from the Glenmark Swamp, were left by me on 

 the banks, where in a short time they became bleached by the sun. After a 

 few years, when again visiting that locality, these bones had entirely dis. 

 appeared, and only small decayed fragments indicated in a few ^^laces where the 

 larger specimens had previously lain. Of course I am aware that these semi- 

 fossil bones havg not the same power of resistance as fresh ones, but neverthe- 

 less this rapid destruction ought to show us that, were they fresh bones, they 

 would not resist for any number of yeai's the agencies at work — heat and cold, 

 rain and frost, — without becoming totally destroyed. I do not know how long 

 the bones of cattle and horses remain on the plains exposed to the atmospherilies 

 without becoming entirely destroyed, but I imagine they would not last for 

 a number of years. On the other hand, if we assume that all the bones which 

 became exposed had been subjected to the action of fire, and were thus in a 

 calcined state, which would have prepared them to ofier better resistance, I do 

 not think that this could have preserved them for such a long period as we are 

 obliged to believe that the Dinornis has been extinct. I may here add that at 

 present moa bones and moa stones in the Canterbury plains are found only by 

 digging ditches and ploughing, and that, as far as I am aware, no instance has 

 occurred lately where they have been of superficial occurrence, so that the 

 bones which were exposed sixteen to twenty years ago have all disappeared. 



From the occurrence of moa bones amongst morainic accumulations, it 

 might appear that the Moa existed in New Zealand only when the climate was 

 difiei"ent from that we at present enjoy in these beautiful islands, so much 

 favoured by nature in this respect. In some other publications I have already 

 treated of this subject, pointing out that at the present time in the morainic 

 accumulations forming below the Francis Joseph glacier at the West Coast, and 

 less than 700 feet above the sea level, the trunks and leaves of large pines and 

 arborescent ferns are imbedded, together with the bones of Apteryx, Strigops, 

 Nestor, and Ocydromus, from which the investigators of future days might 

 conclude that these species had existed in a much colder climate than that of 

 the West Coast of New Zealand at the present time. In the same way, 

 having this interesting fact of the present day before us, we are debarred from 

 believing that, from the former larger extent of the New Zealand glaciers, the 

 climate was much colder in similar positions, as far as regards aspect, altitude, 

 and general orographical features, than it is at present. If we look, for 

 instance, at the country at the southern base of Moinit Cook, between the 

 Tasman, Hooker, and Mueller glaciers, the outlets of which form the Tasman 



