278 Dr A. Thomson on the Moa Caves of New Zealand, 



rous, and most of them were as soft as pipe-clay. On a bluff 

 near the embouchure of the river, Mr Mantell saw the sand 

 flat strewn with bones of men, moas, and other birds. They 

 had probably been brought down the stream, and originally 

 covered over with sand, which sand had been drifted away 

 when he saw them. Moas' bones have also been found by 

 Mr Mantell near the above place, in circular holes contain- 

 ing beds of ashes with charcoal. Moas' bones have been 

 found by myself in two caves in the mountain limestone 

 formation, near the western coast ; and I have seen bones 

 which were brought from other caves in this district. There 

 is a volcanic hill called Hikerangi, near Tuhua, thirty miles 

 from the Taupo Lake, near the top of which, I was informed, 

 there was a cave which contained Moas' bones. Dieffenbach 

 mentions that the Rev. Mr Taylor found bones in a rivulet 

 near Whanganui, which flowed from a mountain called 

 Hikerangi. I purchased bones at Rotoaire, which were 

 found in a cave on the hill between the lake and Taupo ; but 

 as that cave was tapued in consequence of its being a place 

 of sepulture, the natives would not conduct me to it. At 

 Rickawa, near the south end of the Taupo Lake, the pa of 

 the great chief Te Heuhea gave me a metatarsal bone, which 

 he told me he had found among the scoriae rock, on a hill 

 near Taupo ; and I have seen the femur of a Moa which was 

 found in the sand at the mouth of the Waikato river, which 

 river has its origin or spring in the Taupo Lake. No bones 

 have ever been found north of Auckland. 



Are all the gigantic Moas extinct ? — There are a few New 

 Zealanders who believe that some of these feathered giants 

 still tread upon the earth ; but to prevent the least charge 

 of credulity from being brought against myself, I shall not 

 insert any of the stories which I have heard from the natives 

 on this subject, because they all possess more or less the air 

 of fiction, and none of them the least appearance of fact. 



There are also Europeans in New Zealand who believe 

 that Moas are still in existence in some of the remote and 

 unfrequented wilds of the middle island ; but such stories 

 are unsupported by any evidence of a credible nature. A 

 European informed Mr Colenso, in 1842, that a Moa was 



