﻿9 4 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



" Taylor's New Zealand," page 124, contains some instnictive information 

 concerning a Maori tradition, which, if reliable, at once points to the fact that 

 when the present race arrived in New Zealand the Moas were already extinct. 

 In giving the list of original canoes, Mr. Taylor relates, in speaking of No. 12, 

 " Te E,angi na mutu. Tamatea Kokai was the chief ; Nga ti rua nui. It 

 came to Ranga tapu. On their arrival at that place they saw stones like 

 English flints and moa bones," and he adds, " it was there that I discovered the 

 largest quantity of the bones of the Dinornis which I have seen. The flints, 

 I have no doubt, were the stones which that bird used to swallow, being 

 chiefly quartz pebbles." However, as the reverend gentleman distinctly speaks 

 of stones like English flints, might this not suggest that at least a portion of 

 them were rude stone implements and chips made of flint, such as we still 

 find in the kitchen-middens of the moa-hunting race ? 



Third Paper on Moas and Moa Hunters. 

 {Read before the Philosophical Society of Canterbury, 20th December, 1871.] 



In my anniversary address delivered to you on 1st March of this year, I 

 had the honour to lay before you some of the principal facts concerning the so- 

 called native traditions about the existence of the Dinornithes. I also ofiered 

 a description of the moa-hunter encampment situated between the junction of 

 the Little Eakaia and the main river, and of some others of minor importance, 

 discovered by me in other parts of this province, but of similar ethnological 

 interest. 



At our meeting of April 5th, I laid before you some additional information 

 on some points of importance concerning the same subject previously over- 

 looked, and to-night, with your permission, I wish to give a further account, 

 based partly upon my own researches and partly upon communications received 

 from different parts of the colony, all bearing upon questions intimately 

 associated with the subject under review. 



I am happy to say that my papers have had the effect of eliciting the 

 publication of very important information ; first, in two papers read before this 

 society by the Rev, J. W. Stack and Mr. John D. Enys ; and afterwards, in 

 two other papers of Dr. J. Hector, F.R.S., and Mr. W. D. Murison, both read 

 before the Otago Institute, which ai-e full of valuable facts and suggestions, 

 and to which I shall have to refer fully in these pages. 



During the course of this winter I paid another visit to the Little Eakaia 

 encampment, and as the gi'ound had all been broken up, and the owner of the 

 property, Mr. T. Cannon, allowed me to make excavations wherever I thought 



