1848.] MANTELL ON FOSSIL REMAINS FROM NEW ZEALAND. 229 
changed. The rocks and strata in these localities indicate generally 
both secondary and tertiary formations; the former consisting of 
argillaceous schist, sandstone, conglomerates, greensands, &c.; the 
latter of clay, marly calcareous tufa, sand, gravel, and alluvial de- 
posits.” ‘The true situation of the Moa bones is not known with 
certainty, but Mr. Colenso infers that they are found in the lower- 
most tertiary deposit. The localities mentioned by Mr. Colenso lie 
to the east of the volcanic chain of ‘Tongariro, and the rivers pro- 
bably have their origin on the flanks of that volcanic region. 
The collection formed by Dr. Mackellar was from the Middle 
Island, from a superficial turbary formation on the coast, which was 
submerged at high tide, and is near the settlement at Waikawaite. 
Mr. Perey Earl, who obtained his specimens from the same locality, 
mentions that this deposit, which is overflowed by the sea at high 
tides, had been covered by a layer of sand and shingle; but this 
covering had been swept away by storm-waves a short time before 
his arrival, and a bed of black peat was exposed, from the surface of 
which bones projected; these and other specimens were procured 
by digging close to the surface, or at a moderate depth in the peat ; 
they were all Dinornis’ bones *. 
The account given by the Rev. Mr. Taylor of Wanganui, a settle- 
ment on the western coast of the North Island, near the embouchure 
of the river of that name, lying to the south of Cape Egmont, as 
New Plymouth does to the north, is, in substance, as follows :— 
In 1843 he procured a collection of bones during a journey to 
Turakina (?), from having observed a fragment of' large bone, which 
induced him to mquire of the natives if such relics were to be met 
with. The Maories poimted out to him several little hillocks of 
bones, scattered here and there over the valley at the mouth of the 
river Whaingaihu (?) where the sand had drifted. Mr. Taylor de- 
scribes these heaps as being composed of bones of several kinds of 
Moa, as though the flesh of the birds had been eaten, and the bones 
thrown indiscriminately together. The bones were in so friable a 
state that only the large ones would bear removal; the smaller ones 
pulverized in the hand, and below the surface the whole was a mass 
of decomposed bone. ‘The subsoil was a loamy marl, beneath 
which was a stratum of clay that chiefly forms the cliffs of this part 
of the western coast ; it contains numerous marine shells, and closely 
resembles in appearance the galt of the south-east of England. I 
have no doubt it was when that loamy marl formed the surface-soil 
that the Moa lived; for although it is laid bare by the river-side, 
yet in other parts 2¢ 2s wholly covered by several strata of marine 
and freshwater deposits. Ihave found the bones of the Moa in 
this bed, not only in other parts of the western, but also in the 
eastern coast, at the Hast Cape, and at Poverty Bay. I have not 
heard of this deposit having been noticed north of Turakina (?) +.” 
All the specimens sent from the localities above-mentioned, with 
the exception of those from the South or Middle Island, are in the 
* Zool. Trans. vol. iii. 
tT See Prof. Owen’s Memoir on the Dinornis, Zool. Trans. vol. iii. p. 327, 
