Canterbury and Westland. 439 



great Maori chiefs Hongi and Waikato, then residing in England. If 

 the term Moa did not exist in this vocabulary we might assume that 

 it had been overlooked by these Maori chiefs, both of the highest rank, 

 and therefore well versed in the traditional lore and the natural history 

 of their country, but the word is correctly given and explained to mean 

 "a stone, also a name of a person, and of a place. " Will it not 

 appear to the unbiassed and unprejudiced reader a very strange 

 occurrence, that the two great Maori chiefs should have failed to give 

 to their European inquirers, at least some account of the remarkable 

 traditions of these wonderful birds, had they known anything about 

 them? 



Lesson (Voyage autour du monde de la corvette La Coqidlle 

 Zoologie, page 418, Paris, 1828) speaks of the occurrence of the Kiwi* 

 in the following words : — " Les naturels nous parlerent fort souvent d'un 

 oiseau sans ailes dont ils nous apporterent les debris qui nous parurent 

 celles d'un Emou. Les naturels chassent ces oiseaux avec des chiens 

 et les nomment Kiwi-Kiwi. Nous ne doutons point aujourd'hui que ce 

 soit l'Apteryx Australis de Shaw. " Nobody will accuse me of special 

 pleading if I ask why the natives did not bring any Moa-bones to the 

 Erench Naturalist so eager to obtain those of the Kiwi, if they had 

 known of their existence or at least recognized them as bird bones. 



The next work " The New Zealanders " published in the " Library of 

 Entertaining Knowledge," in 1830, contains principally the adventures 

 of John Rutherford, who stayed about 10 years, from 1816 to 1826, 

 amongst the New Zealanders, as a prisoner. He is described in the 

 "Work as " evidently a person of considerable quickness and great 

 powers of observation" (page 278) and having been made a Chief, 

 travelled with his tribe in many directions, and although he gives some 

 interesting notes on native traditions, and the natural history of New 

 Zealand, no mention is ever made of the ^loa. 



" An account of New Zealand," by the Rev. William Tate : London, 

 1835. This missionary who stayed a number of years in New Zealand, 

 and made considerable travels in the Northern Island, gives copious 

 notes on the Botany, Zoology, including an account of the Kiwi, but 

 no mention is made of the Moa. We arrive at last to the first work, 

 that of J. S. Pollock, who resided in New Zealand, between the years 



* I may here mention that the first Kiwi skin was brought to Europe in 1812 by Captain. 

 Buckley of the Providence. 



