1877.] The Giant Birds of New Zealand. 19 
of sweet potato, which they had brought with them in their em- 
igration, the succulent root of a fern (Pteris esculenta), which, 
although abundant, is exceedingly indifferent food, together with 
shell-fish. To these were added the flesh of birds, especially of 
the “ mutton bird” (Puffinus tristis), and of seal and fish ; then, 
too, the scanty board was filled out with human flesh. It is not 
without reason, therefore, that a bird so large, and furnishing so 
much food as the moa, should be eagerly sought after by the 
Maoris, and, being unable to fly, and unlike the ostrich, having 
no desert to flee to, soon became extinct. 
The suggestion of Hochstetter that it was only after the ex- 
termination of the moa, and the consequent scarcity of animal 
food, that the New Zealanders were driven to cannibalism, is full 
of significance. 
There are uncertain indications that New Zealand was inhab- 
ited by an older people than the present aborigines, a race of 
“black fellows,” as the Maori traditions state, who were exter- 
minated by the more warlike Polynesians. Some consider this 
older race as the true moa hunters, who exterminated those 
giant birds many hundred years ago; the active search that is 
now being made in the ancient cave dwellings of New Zealand, 
it is expected, will throw more light on this interesting subject. 
The adventures of the New Zealand moa hunters, armed 
with spears and implements of stone, to whom the use of the 
bow was unknown, must have equaled in wildness and danger 
the struggles of the Neolithic hunters of Europe with the cave 
bear or the fierce aurochs. What wild, weird scenes those deep 
valleys of the Southern Alps must have witnessed, when, after 
the successful hunt, the natives gathered about their camp-fires, 
that lit up their dark tattooed faces and shone on the strange 
vegetation around, to feast on the flesh of the moa, or partake 
of its huge eggs, roasted on the hot stones of the oven ! 
How long these birds have been extinct is as yet unsettled. 
The fact that the bones are found so plentifully, often lying ex- 
posed on the surface of the ground, and also the fresh condition 
of many of the remains, some of which still retain the dried 
muscles and feathers attached, show that the moa lived at a very 
recent date, geologically speaking. The Maoris, however, with 
whom we conversed while in New Zealand, although some of 
them were cannibals in their youth, had never heard of these 
birds as living, not even through the traditions of their ancestors. 
Some of the old legends of the natives, still extant, do contain, 
