﻿114 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



that the Moa was largely distributed over this part of the island, and has but 

 recently become extinct."* 



The total length of Dr. Thomson's specimen is 1 6 -5 inches, and includes the 

 first dorsal and last six cervical vertebrce, with the integument and shrivelled 

 tissues enveloping them on the left side. 



The surfaces of the bones on the right side, where not covered by the 

 integument, are quite free from all membrane and other tissues, but are quite 

 perfect, and in good preservation, without being in the least degree mineralized. 



The margin of the fragment of skin is sharply defined along the dorsal 

 edge, but elsewhere it is soft, easily pulverized, and passing into adipocere. 



The circumference of the neck of the bird, at the upper part of the specimen, 

 appears to have been about eighteen inches, and the thickness of the skin 

 about three- sixteenths of an inch. 



The only indication of the matrix in which it had been imbedded, was a 

 fine micaceous sand that covered every part of the specimen like dust, there 

 being no clay or other adherent matrix. On removing the sand with a soft 

 brush from the skin, it was discovered to be of a dirty red-brown colour, and 

 to foi'm deep transverse folds, especially towards the upper part. The surface 

 is roughened by elevated conical ^^cs^MYZce, from the apex of some of which 

 springs a slender transparent feather-barrel, never longer than half an inch. 

 On the dorsal surface a few of the quills still carry fragments of the webs, some 

 being two inches in length. From this it appears that the colour of the barbs 

 was chestnut red, like Apteryx Australis, but that they had two equal plumes 

 to each barrel, as in the Emu and Cassowary ; and in that respect difiered 

 from the Apteryx, the feathers of which have not any after-plume. On the 

 other hand, the barbs of the webs of the feathers do not seem to have been 

 soft and downy towards the base as in the Emu. From the direction of the 

 stumps of the feathers it is evident that the portion of the neck which has 

 been preserved is that contained within the trunk of the body, and which, in 

 the natural position, has a downward slope, the cervical end of the spine being 

 where the upward sweep of the neck of the bird commenced, which accounts 

 for the absence of the trachea with its hard bony rings, no trace of which was 



* Writing to me on 18th October, 1871, of some moa remains found m the same 

 district, Mr. W. A. Low says :— "I have obtained a well-preserved piece of the bird's 

 flesh, with portions of dowii and numerous feather -barrels observable on the oiiter 

 surface. The flesh is not the least fossilized, simply well dried, and can be easily 

 separated into fibres. You remember what quantities of rats used to infest this part of 

 the country eight or nme years ago ; they were legion, and I am astonished that this 

 fragment should have escaped their ravages — perhaps on purpose that it might ultimately 

 come into your hands, and enable you to settle the vexed question of the period of the 

 existence of these gigantic birds, which once roamed in such immense numbers in this 

 old lacustrine region." 



