MOAS AND MOA HUNTERS. 319 
moa hunt, of the weapons they used, of their mode of conducting 
the chase, of the implements employed to cut up the dead game, 
of the incantations pronounced before they started from home ; 
and he states definitely that the last moa hunt in the North 
Island took place under certain chiefs at a certain spot in the 
Bay of Plenty. M. de Quatrefages evidently places faith in the 
assertions of all these supporters of Maori traditions, and rejects 
the notion that the present race of Natives of these islands were 
not, at a late period, acquainted with the moa. 
But the most decisive proof referred to in this paper of the 
recent disappearance of moas is found in the discoveries of 
various bones with portions of skin and muscular tissue still ad- 
hering to them. Three such discoveries are mentioned, and so 
fresh were the specimens in at least one instance that the 
muscular fibres were capable of dissection by Dr. Coughtrey. 
Dr. von Haast has attempted to explain these facts by a partial 
fossilisation of the bones. M.de Quatrefages points out that, 
even so, no possible explanation is afforded of the entirely non- 
fossilised condition of the flesh and skin. It is not, he says, 
possible to imagine a fossilised bone covered with quite fresh 
flesh ; and if, at some places, bones of extinct animals have been 
found only partially fossilised, they have never been accompanied 
by any particle of muscle or tendons. He quotes, on this point, 
a letter from Professor Milne-Edwards, who, referring to the 
discovery of a mammoth in Siberia, whose flesh still remained 
intact, observes that this animal was embedded in ice, a very 
different thing trom the, practically, open caves where the moa 
bones were found with adherent skin. . 
Summing up the whole question, M. de Quatrefages rejects 
altogether the theory of the extinction of the moas in far distant 
ages anterior to the arrival of the Maoris. Referring to a paper 
by the late Mr J. W. Hamilton, in Vol. VII. of the Transactions, 
in which an old Maori, Haumatangi, is said to have told the 
author that he had actually seen a live moa, the French savant 
declares that he considers this statement as at least extremely 
probable, and that in all likelihood the moa continued to live in 
some parts of New Zealand down to about the year 1770 or 
1780. 
The controversial portion of the paper before us does not 
occupy the whole of its pages, and it is satisfactory to note that 
the author, after thus disposing of the vexed question, goes on 
to acknowledge in full the very valuable service rendered to 
science by Dr. von Haast in his researches upon the Dinorni- 
thide. A somewhat curious point is noted 1n connection 
with the extinction of these great birds, namely, the suc- 
cessive disappearance of the different species. It would 
seem that the first to vanish was the Dinornis giganteus, the last 
to remain Euryapteryx and Meionornis. All the species seem to 
have existed at the time of the first arrival of the Maoris in 
these Islands; but the largest rapidly became extinct—if, 
indeed, they were not already reduced to small numbers. M. 
