﻿86 Transactions.- — Miscellaneous. 



holes had been bored ; but, belonging to such a majestic bird, is it not possible 

 that they might have been worn as charms or amulets, or used in connection 

 with some religious rite 1 



Amongst all the stone implements, there was not a single one from which 

 we might draw an inference how the moa-hunters killed their prey, but as the 

 birds lived doubtless in droves, they were probably driven by men or dogs 

 towards the apex of the triangle either to be killed with heavy wooden 

 implements or stone spear-heads fixed to staves, to be snared, or to be caught 

 in flax nets. Another method of killing them, if we assume that the luoa- 

 hunters were allied to the Australians, may have been by the use of the 

 boomerang or a similar wooden weapon, to be hurled at their pi'ey. 



Proceeding to an examination of the kitchen-middens or i-efuse heaps, we 

 observe that by far the greater portion consists of moa bones, belonging to 

 several species, identical in every respect with those the skeletons of which we 

 excavated in the Glenmark Swamp. In the first volume of the " Transactions 

 of the New Zealand Institute," jiage 89 and sequel, I have given a list of the 

 Dinornis bones found in Glenmark, arranged according to the species they 

 belonged to, and showing the number of each. From that list, it will appear 

 that of all these species, Dinornis casuarinus is the most numerous, being 

 represented by bones belonging to at least forty-five specimens, while Ditiornis 

 didiformis follows with thirty-seven, Dinornis crassus in the third line, and 

 then Dinornis elepTiantopus. The other species, Dinornis gracilis, struthioides, 

 robustus, giganteus, and maximus, are of much more rare occurrence, and 

 Palapteryx ingens is only represented by one single specimen, I ventured to 

 draw the conclusion, that the smaller and more numerous species had been 

 living in droves, whilst the larger ones were of solitary habits and of much 

 rarer occurrence. During the examination of the kitchen-middens, and while 

 in the act of collecting their contents, I was at once struck by the curious fact 

 that the more or less frequent presence of the bones coincided closely with 

 similar observations made concerning the skeletons imbedded in the Glenmark 

 Swamp, and which showed that the frequency of the difierent species in that 

 locality was not accidental. It also became evident to me that all the species, 

 except perhaps the largest ones, had been co-temporaneous^ affording ample 

 food to the aborigines of the country. Of the remains of Dinornis casuarinus, 

 the leg-bones are the most plentiful. A few only of the tarsus-metatarsus were 

 intact, by far the greater portion broken on both extremities, the tibia was 

 always broken on both ends, the shaft of the bone smashed to small fragments, 

 with the exception of a few pieces which were left uninjured. This additional 

 trouble had doubtless been taken in order to extract the medullary contents for 

 food ; also the epiphyses both of the proximal and distal ends were generally 

 partially destroyed, having been scooped out to get at the marrow. ^\ib femur 



