1877. ] The Giant Birds of New Zealand. 17 
it was no easy climb, even for a person accustomed to the work, 
to reach our moa cave. We also heard of a cave in which moa 
bones had been found, at a still greater elevation among the 
Hector Mountains, on the east shore of Lake Wakatipu. Other 
moa bones were obtained from a cave, but a few feet above the 
waters of the lake and lower than some of the lake terraces. 
The former existence of gigantic birds in New Zealand was 
first madé known in 1839, when a few fragments of their remains 
found their way into the hands of scientific men in England. Not 
long afterwards, Mr. Walter Mantell made his well-known dis- 
covery of moa bones on the east coast of the South Island. 
This extensive collection passed into the possession of the British 
Museum, and furnished Professor Owen with the material for 
his splendid study of these remains, which were grouped under 
two genera, Dinornis and Palapteryx, and these again subdivided 
into numerous species. The specific distinctions are somewhat 
difficult to trace, as the bones vary in size; the smallest metatar- 
sal bone in our collection measures 7.5 inches in length and 3 
inches in least circumference, while the corresponding measure- 
ments of the metatarsal bone of Dinornis giganteus are 18.5 and 
5.5 inches respectively, — the tibia of the same bird being three 
feet in length ; between these limits there is an almost complete 
gradation in the size of the species. 
In later years numerous discoveries of these remains have been 
made, both on the North and South Island, and from deposits 
along the shore that are swept by the tides, to an elevation of 
five thousand feet or more amid the Southern Alps. 
One of the most remarkable deposits yet discovered was at 
Hamilton, Otago, where from an area of about seven hundred 
square feet, three and one half tons of moa bones were obtained, 
for the Otago Museum. As a great number of bones were too 
much decayed to be collected, this amount indicates only about 
one half of the total quantity contained in this limited deposit. 
These bones were found literally packed down in bulk, entirely 
Separated from each other, and mixed indiscriminately through- 
out the deposit. The place in which they were found seems at 
one time to have been a lagoon surrounding a spring, to which 
the moas resorted in great numbers, the bones of those that died 
being scattered and trampled down by the living birds. To- 
gether with the moa bones were found the remains of an extinct 
goose, and also of an eagle that once lived in New Zealand. The — 
reason for the moas collecting and dying in such numbers at this 
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