﻿11 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



have now destroyed all traces of them. So far, I think the evidence is against 

 the theory of the recent destruction of the Moa, but the rejection of that theory 

 does not involve the acceptance of the other, which refers the extinction of 

 the Moa to a period immeasui-ably distant. 



Abt. VI.— 0?z Recent Moa Remains in New Zealand. 

 By James Hector, M.D., F.E.S. 



(With Illustrations.) 



[Read hefore the Otago Institute, \&tTi September, 1871.] 



It will he in the recollection of some members of this Society that in January, 

 1864, a remarkably perfect specimen of the Moa was found near Tiger Hill, 

 on the Manuherikia Plains, in the inteiior of the province of Otago, and that 

 it was transmitted to the Museum at York. Before the bones wei'e packed 

 for Europe, I was afforded an opportunity of examining and figuiing them, 

 and a photogTaph of the restored skeleton is in the Otago Museum. They 

 afterwards formed the subject of a memoir by Professor Owen in the " Trans- 

 actions of the Zoological Society" for 1869, who identified the species as 

 Dinornis rohustus. 



These remains were chiefly remarkable on account of the well-preserved 

 condition of some parts of the skeleton, portions of the ligaments, skin, and 

 feathers, being still attached to some of the bones ; whereas moa bones, in the 

 condition in which they are usually found, are to some extent fossilized, or at 

 least have undergone sufficient chemical change to deprive them not only of 

 all ligamentous appendages, but to some extent of their original proportion of 

 organic matter. 



The discovery in the following year of a Moa's egg, containing the bones 

 of an embiyo chick, in a road cutting at Cromwell, was recorded by me in 

 1867. (" Zoological Transactions," London.) This egg was found imbedded 

 in sand two feet below the surface, and was unfortunately broken by the 

 workmen who extracted it, so that many fragments were lost. Those which 

 remain have, however, been fitted together, and give the form of more than 

 one half of the egg, which appears to have had the following dimensions : — 

 Long diameter, 8-9 inches; short diameter, 6"1 inches. A model of this egg, 

 which I have lately prepared, will be found in the Otago Museum, together 

 with a model of the great egg which was obtained by Mr. Fife at the 

 Kaikouras, and another that was found by Mr. Mantell near Oamarvt in 1849. 

 The texture of the shell of the Cromwell egg is soft and chalky, having, no 

 doubt, been corroded by solvents contained in the soil. In order to ascertain 



