234 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.  [Feb. 2, 
confined to this isolated spot, that many persons who have resided m 
Norfolk Island for years have assured me that its occurrence there 
is unknown, although the distance from one island to the other is not 
more than three or four miles*.”’ 
Such is a brief account of the birds’ bones that have been accu- 
rately examined by Professor Owen ; but it is probable, when the 
vertebree and other specimens that have as yet been only cursorily 
inspected are carefully compared with recent skeletons, other species 
and genera will be detected. Some of the vertebrze appear to belong 
to the existing species of Apterya, A. Australis. 
E9g-shells.—The fragments of egg-shells imbedded in the ossi- 
ferous deposits had escaped the notice of all previous observers, 
which is not surprising, for they are of small size and of very rare oc- 
currence. My son, in all his wanderings, only procured between thirty 
and forty pieces. As these precious relics will shortly be described 
by Professor Owen, I will only mention that the edges of most of 
them are rounded, as if water-worn. They belong to different species, 
or perhaps genera: some of them are smooth, but others have the 
external surface marked with short interrupted lmear grooves, re- 
sembling the eggs of some of the Struthionide, but still presenting 
very characteristic peculiarities. 
No vestiges of the bones of the wings have been detected. 
Sea_ts.—The remaining part of the collection consists of jaws with 
teeth, scapulee, vertebree, ribs, femora, and other bones, of a species of 
large seal; whether distinct from the two kinds (Phoca leptonyx 
and P. leonina) that inhabit the southern seas, and occasionally visit 
the shores of New Zealand, I have not yet been able to determie. 
The bones were found mixed indiscriminately with those of the 
birds, and are filled with voleanic sand. 
Femur of a Carnivore.—One other relic must be specified, the 
femur of a dog; the sole fossil bone of a terrestrial quadruped that 
has hitherto been discovered in the ossiferous deposits of New Zea- 
land. 
Burnt Moa, and Human bones.—I must not omit to mention a 
very remarkable incident. In one spot the natives pointed out to 
my son some little mounds covered with herbage, as containing bones, 
the refuse of feasts made by their ancestors ; and upon digging into 
these hillocks they were found to be made up of burnt bones. These 
consisted of Moas’, dogs’ and human bones promiscuously inter- 
mingled. 'These bones, which have evidently been subjected to the 
action of fire, contain no traces whatever either of the earthy powder 
or ferruginous impregnation so constant in the fossil bones from the 
fluviatile silt, nor of the voleanic sand with which all the bones col- 
lected by my son are more or less permeated. Mr. Taylor (ante 
p- 229) mentions having found similar heaps of bones in the valley of 
the Whaingaihu, “as though the flesh of the birds had been eaten, and 
the bones thrown indiscriminately together.’ If such was the origin 
of these heaps of bones, and they are to be regarded as the rejecta- 
menta of the feasts of the aborigimes, the practice of cannibalism by 
* Mr. Gould’s Birds of Australia. 
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