Canterbury and Westland. 443 



for the invaluable collections of dinornithic remains, forming the pride 

 and chief attraction of the Canterbury Museum. Glenmark is doubt- 

 less the spot which has furnished the largest quantity and variety of 

 Moa-bones. These have been made available for the elucidation of 

 the anatomy of these wonderful struthious birds, and a large number 

 of Museums all over the World have received representative col- 

 lections from the same source. Owing both to the fact that Moa- 

 bones occur in beds of greater age close to these turbary deposits, 

 and that their relative positions can easily be traced, Glenmark offers 

 at the same time, a favourable spot to prove first, that there is no 

 difference in the osteological characteristics of all the species and 

 sub-species, whether they occur in the upper and lower beds, and 

 secondly that all the different species, as it were, have appeared 

 together, and have afterwards become extinct about the same time. 



A small water-course, the Glenmark Creek, flowing in a nearly 

 north and south direction, joins the Omihi a few miles above its 

 junction with the "Waipara. The alluvial deposits of the Omihi having 

 thrown a bar across the valley of the Glenmark Creek, here at one time a 

 lagoon about half a mile in length was formed, which in course of time 

 was filled up by turbary accumulations. It is in these deposits that the 

 principal stores of dinornithic remains have been preserved. The valley 

 has here an average breadth of a quarter of a mile, gradually widening 

 till the termination of the broad outstanding ridge between the two 

 valleys is reached. From here the Glenmark Creek flows across the 

 alluvial deposits of the Omihi. Above the Glenmark station the valley 

 by degrees contracts, and the water-course flows in a narrow channel 

 either cut in limestone rocks or in post-pliocene alluvium, the latter 

 about a mile above the home station being about 70ft thick. Here in 

 several spots Moa-bones, generally in a fragmentary condition are not 

 unfrequent, covered at least with 60ft of subangular river shingle. 

 I collected here the remains of a number of species including D. 

 maximus, elepliantopus, and didiformis, together with a few bones of 

 Aptomis and a fragmentary humerus of Harpagornis. The occurrence 

 of such a variety of forms proves beyond a doubt that even during 

 the Great Glacier period, all the species were already existing. The 

 bones from this deposit are very heavy and impregnated with car- 

 bonate of lime. 



A quarter of a mile lower down the creek, another section is exposed 

 in a nearly vertical cliff, on the left bank. It consists in descending 

 order of 16 feet of sands, often very ferruginous, repeatedly alter- 

 nating with layers of river shingle, mostly of small size. 



