18 The Giant Birds of New Zealand. (January, 
one locality is obscure ; it has been suggested by Mr. Booth, the 
- discoverer of the fossils, that it was owing to a refrigeration of 
climate, the birds collecting in this spring for warmth as the 
winters became more cold. Dr. Hochstetter also obtained, dur- 
ing his visit to New Zealand, valuable moa skeletons from lime- 
stone caves in the South Island. These skeletons were found be- 
neath deposits of stalagmite, and were entire, showing that these 
birds inhabited the caves and had retired there for refuge when 
death overtook them. Together with these skeletons the ossified 
rings of the trachea were found, and also little heaps of smoothed 
pebbles, ‘* moa-stones,”” which had been swallowed by the moa 
to assist digestion, in the same manner as the domestic fowl swal- 
lows sand and gravel. 
The remains of these gigantic birds are not only found in 
caves and recent river deposits, but also scattered over the sur- 
face of the country ; although it is somewhat uncommon to find 
them thus exposed at the present time, yet in the early days of 
the colonists they were quite abundant, and the little heaps 
of “ moa-stones ” were frequently found beneath the ferns. Some 
years since Dr. Hector observed, near Lake Wakatipu, over 
thirty skeletons of the moa lying at the foot of a cliff, in the 
shelter of which they seem to have sought refuge from the storm 
that destroyed them. 
Remains of moa bones, and also fragments of the egg-shells of 
the same birds have been found, showing the action of fire, and 
mingled with the charred bones of men and dogs in the ancient 
kitchen-middens of the New Zealanders. The large bones are 
also found broken open as if to obtain the marrow ; and the egg- 
shells have been found in the graves of the aborigines. Many 
other facts have been brought to light by the scientific men who 
have labored in New Zealand, proving that the moa still existed 
on those islands after their settlement by man, who introduced 
a new and higher element into the “ struggle for existence” that 
resulted in the extermination of the moa. 
There is but little doubt that the moa, which was once so abun- 
dant in New Zealand, furnished the principal food of the natives 
as they increased and occupied the land. This is the more evi- 
dent when we remember that those islands furnish little that is 
sufficiently nutritious to serve as food for man. Nothing like 
the delicious berries and larger fruits that abound in our own 
country are found in New Zealand. The food of the natives, at 
the time of the discovery of those islands, was confined to a kind 
