1877. ] The Giant Birds of New Zealand. 15 
It was the writer’s good.fortune while stationed at Queenstown, 
N. Z., in connection with the United States Transit of Venus 
Expedition, to obtain some of the interesting remains of these 
huge birds from a cave that we discovered on one of the lower 
mountains overlooking Lake Wakatipu. Immediately back of 
Queenstown rises a hill, as At is called in that land of snowy 
mountains, over two thousand feet high ; separated from Mount 
Ben Lomond bya deep narrow valley, the sides of which are very 
steep, in some places forming beetling cliffs that are inaccessible 
even to the wild goats. It was on the side of this narrow valley, 
eighteen hundred feet from the base of the hill, that the Moa 
Cave, as we named it, was found. Soon after arriving at Queens- 
town we heard of the existence of a cave on that portion of the 
hill and, procuring a guide, we visited it. This cave extended 
into the side of the hill for a distance of fifty or seventy-five feet, 
but we found little in it of interest, except a few feathers, which 
we believe on good authority to be those of the extinct moa, 
indicating that this cave was very likely inhabited at one time 
by that bird. Proceeding up the hill to search for other caves, 
we soon came to a long crevice in the rock, from two to three 
feet wide, the sides of which were overgrown with ferns; upon 
parting these and looking down, I could see the bottom of the 
cave, which descended obliquely, and there to my great delight 
I saw a large bone projecting from the dirt, some twenty feet 
below. I lost no time in descending the crevice and securing the 
prize, which I found to be a huge metatarsal bone of Dinornis 
robustus, measuring 17.5 inches in length, and 6.8 inches in cir- 
cumference at the smallest portion of the shaft ; on further search 
its companion was found, also a large portion of the tibia and 
some of the vertebre of the same individual. Although careful 
search was made we were unable to find the remaining bones of 
the skeleton, and were at a loss to know what had become of them. 
These bones were all well preserved, and seemed to have lost a 
great part of their animal matter. 
On continuing our exploration, we found that the cave first 
discovered joined another and still deeper one; into this we de- 
scended with the aid of a rope, and, groping our way along for 
about a hundred feet, were rewarded by finding more bones of 
the moa. In the extreme end of this cave and mingled with — 
dirt, that had evidently fallen from above, we obtained a number 
of bones belonging to two or three individuals. As the cave at 
this point was quite narrow, the earth had to be carried back to — 
