﻿Haast. — Moas and Moa Hunters. 101 



Dr. Leuckart has examined tliem very carefully, compared tliem with a 

 genuine Maori skull, and has informed me that they are not to be distin- 

 guished from the latter. This distinguished naturalist has thus set this 

 matter at rest, and the question appears to me settled that if these skulls 

 really belonged to the pre-historic moa-huuters, of which however there is no 

 evidence, that race was not different from that at present inhabiting New 

 Zealaud. 



There is another important point to which I wish to refer, namely, to 

 the occurrence of a gigantic raptorial bird in New Zealand, the Harpagornis 

 Moorei, of which the Canterbury Museum possesses portions, found in the 

 turbary deposits of Glenmark, together with bones of the extinct Dinornithes. 



There is no reason to suppose that the Harpagornis became extinct 

 before the Dinornis, and thus if the present inhabitants of New Zealand had 

 any reliable traditions about the Moa, would it not be evident that the 

 existence of this more teri'ible bird of prey would have been recorded by 

 them 1 This is certainly circumstantial evidence, which cannot easily be 

 set aside.'"* 



However, returning to Sir George Grey's letter, may I express a hope 

 that the Maori traditions about the Moa, contained in songs, etc., to which 

 that distinguished Maori scholar alludes, might be collected and published by 

 him for our benefit, so that we can judge how far the present native 

 inhabitants of these islands have any traditions concerning its existence ; I 

 wish this the more sincerely as the Rev. J. T. H. Woehlers, of Ruapuka, 

 who has been nearly thirty years amongst the natives in the southern portion 

 of this island, writes to me and states that he has never been able to obtain 

 any information on the subject, thus in every respect testifying to the accuracy 

 of the information received from the Revs. W. Colenso and Stack, and Mr. 

 Alexander Mackay. 



Two very important papers were read before the Otago Institute, to which 

 I wish to refer at some length. Dr. J. Hector, F.R.S., gives in the first paper 

 a great deal of valuable information which he possesses on the subject, for 

 which every lover of science must feel grateful, and which was particularly 

 welcome to me, although Dr. Hector arrives at somewhat different conclusions 

 to my own. 



One of the principal facts upon which Dr. Hector bases his conclusions as 



*■ I found, however, that Professor Owen, when exhibiting in November 1839, at a 

 meeting of the Zoological Society of London, the fragments of the shaft of a femur of 

 Dinornis, the first bone brought to Europe, he observed that he had received this bone 

 from Mr. Eule, with the statement that it was found in ISTew Zealand, where the natives 

 have a tradition that it belonged to a bird of the eagle kmd, which has become extinct, 

 and to which they gave the name of " Mosde." 



N 



