280 Dr A. Thomson on the Moa Caves of New Zealand. 



Canterbury, might obtain a living Moa, and realize fame and 

 fortune by exhibiting it in the different capitals of Europe. 



It is painful to me attempt to throw discredit on any state- 

 ment which has been introduced to the world by the Rev. Mr 

 Taylour ; but if exaggerated stories like these are allowed 

 to pass uncontradicted, after being put forward in such a 

 way, they become every year more and more hurtful, because 

 they increase in weight as they grow in years. It is, there- 

 fore, solely for the sake of truth that I bring forward Mr 

 Meurant' s story for the purpose of stating that I do not be- 

 lieve it. I would not have noticed it at all if it had been 

 confined to the New Zealand Journal ; but I observe it is 

 quoted in a book of considerable weight.* I knew Mr Meu- 

 rant personally ; he was an old New Zealand sealer, a pecu- 

 liar race of men, now almost extinct, born in New South 

 Wales, soon after the settlement of that colony. In early 

 manhood Meurant abandoned the place of his birth, and 

 adopted the adventurous life of a sealer, which he followed 

 for many years ; he was an honest, good, intelligent man, 

 but much given, as many uneducated travellers are, to the 

 marvellous, and many of his stories were connected with the 

 middle island of New Zealand. I well recollect, one dark 

 night, five years ago, when crossing the Houraki Gulf in a 

 very bad boat, that I sat up many hours listening to Mr 

 Meurant's curious old stories about sealers and whalers, and 

 the changes which time had worked on New Zealand and 

 the New Zealanders. It was shortly after the earthquake 

 at Wellington, in 1848, that this occurred ; and the conver- 

 sation turned to it, and Meurant said that the earthquakes 

 in the middle island were most fearful, and that he had 

 seen the tops of the mountains touching each other from the 

 violence of their shakings. I told this next morning to one 

 of my companions, and he said, Do you not know that Meu- 

 rant has a strong imagination ? Now, let me be clearly 

 understood, for Mr Meurant is since dead, and cannot defend 

 himself. I do not say that the whole of his story about the 

 gigantic Moa is a fiction, — quite otherwise; I believe there 

 was some slight foundation for it; most probably he may 



* Annals of Natural History, No. VIII. London, 1851. 



