Different Localities of the Moa Caves. 211 



reckoned to be proportionally longer for its height than 

 those of the Moa) I am wrong in concluding that the Moa, 

 whose inferior extremity I saw put together, must have 

 stood, when alive, about thirteen or fourteen feet high. The 

 Moas were unable to fly, as their rudimentary wings were 

 incapable of raising them from the ground, and the only 

 bone that I have seen which I took for the humerus was 

 sent to Professor Owen, and it was but a small one. The 

 Moa had three toes on each foot, and some New Zealanders 

 describe the domestic cock as being a perfect picture in 

 miniature of that bird. The feathers of the Moa are de- 

 scribed as having been most beautiful, which would lead us 

 to infer that they were of various colours, for Maoris are 

 all fond of gaudy colours ; the bones of the legs of the Moa 

 were filled with marrow, and not with air like other birds ; 

 portions of the eggs of the bird have been found among their 

 bones, of a sufficient size to afford a chord to estimate the 

 probable size of an entire shell, and the conclusion is, that a 

 hat would have been a proper-sized egg-cup for a Moa's egg. 



Places on New-Zealand where Moas 1 bones have beenfound. 

 — In the middle island Moas' bones were found by Percy 

 Earl, Esq., at a place called Waikouaiti, seventeen miles 

 north of Otago,* in a swamp which is almost submerged 

 under the sea, and only visible at low water. Mr Walter 

 Mantell conceives it to have been originally a swamp or 

 morass, in which flax (Phormium tenax) once grew luxuri- 

 antly. Some of the largest bones and finest specimens have 

 been obtained from this part of the country. 



In the north island, Moas' bones have been found in the 

 beds of rivers, running from mountain regions of the interior 

 into Hawk's and Poverty Bays ; the collection of bones sent 

 to England in 1842 by Archdeacon W. Williams, were ob- 

 tained from this district, and also those described by Mr 

 Colenso ; and bones have been found by Mr Walter Mantell 

 at the mouth of a stream called Waingongoro, which empties 

 itself into the sea about sixty miles to the south of Taranaki. 

 The bones were imbedded in a sand flat, were very nume- 



* Mr Edward Shorthand, in his work entitled the " Southern Settlements of 

 New Zealand, 1851," gives a very good account, with a map, of the bay and 

 river of Waikouaiti. 



