1848-49 SKELETON OF <MOA' BURNED 319 



death, which is related in that number : ' The 

 character of Carker as drawn throughout the book 

 makes it evident to me that he was not the man 

 either to act or to be acted upon in such a way ; 

 not but that the scene is wrought up by a master- 

 hand.' 



On March r 1 the last proofs of the ' Arche- 

 type ' were sent to press. 



During this month he carefully arranged the 

 moa 3 bones which had been sent him by Colonel 

 Wakefield. ' R. has made up one terrible-looking 

 leg, which he intends to keep as a memento ; the 

 rest he has been sorting out on the floor in the 

 library, with papers full of various bones, after 

 their kind, lying all around.' 



Owen had a disappointment this year with 

 regard to the bones of the moa, for Sir George 

 Grey, then Governor of New Zealand, had been 

 busily collecting for him, but unfortunately his 

 house and most of its contents were destroyed 

 by fire. 



' I lost,' Sir George wrote to him, ' all my 

 plate, china, linen, wine, and the most valuable of 

 my books, besides curiosities, native songs of differ- 

 ent countries, and objects of natural history, which 

 I had been many years in collecting. I n your depart- 

 ment I lost a magnificent collection of moa bones, 

 including a complete skeleton of the largest moa 

 which had ever been found. I had three complete 



3 Native name of Dinornis. 



