196 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



cooked, as each valve was closed and the shells full of extremely fine 

 earth. Before mid-day we resumed work at the swallow-holes and 

 continued at them for several days with varying success. But I need 

 not recount our work for the time, as the account given of the first two 

 holes we worked will suffice to give a good idea of the others we 

 examined. 



The two main theories propounded to account for the extinction of 

 the Dinomithidce, the one holding forth that the moas were exter- 

 minated by an autocthonic race anterior to the advent of the Maori, 

 the other that their extermination was solely the work of the latter race, 

 may be briefly discussed here. The evidence given while exploring the 

 swallow-holes, caves, and Maori ovens in the Albury district, seems to 

 me to be more consistent with the views of scientists who hold that 

 their extermination was accomplished, or at least accelerated by the 

 hand of man, within the last three or four generations, certainly in late 

 years. Several minor and extremely ingenious theories have been 

 offered to explain the annihilation of the moas ; some are purely 

 fanciful, others appear to me to be nearer to the truth, yet wide of the 

 true cause. Of course I admit that the examination of a certain district 

 may favour one theory and in another it may oppose it, yet the facts I 

 am able to adduce will go to show that the moas — although they were 

 birds of great antiquity, lived in the Albury district within very recent 

 times. It is generally maintained that the larger and more clumsy 

 species of the race were the first to succumb, and in many districts such 

 probably was the case. At Albury, however, the larger bones are as 

 commonly ploughed up on the downs, as those belonging to smaller or 

 intermediate-sized birds. They are buried no deeper, as the ploughs are 

 set to turn over only a certain depth of furrows. I have seen other 

 great bones of D. elep/iantopus that were ploughed up on the tops of the 

 limestone Downs near the cave village in a perfect state of preservation. 

 The greater size and maturity of the bones would preserve them from 

 decaying in the soil for a longer period than the bones of young or 

 immature birds. When digging up the bones in the newly-ploughed 

 furrows we observed that in every instance we only obtained parts of 

 the skeleton ; this would appear to indicate that the birds were slain 

 where they lay, and that parts of the carcase had been removed. If the 

 birds had died a natural death where their remains were found, some 

 allowance may be made for hawks, seagulls, and wekas attacking the 

 flesh, and scattering the finer bones. But I know of no carnivorous 

 bird or animal (excepting perhaps the Harpagornis) having strength 

 to remove the heavy femurs or tarsi of a large bird. Supposing the 

 extinct eagle to be endowed with the power, I think it is probable that 

 owing to the great numbers of living prey it would not be a carrion 

 feeder. Bui the fact of portions only of the skeletons being found in 

 the open country, not only at Albury but elsewhere, seems to favour 

 the idea that they were slain on the spot and cut up, and parts of them 

 removed by their destroyers. The day we searched the newly-ploughed 

 land, one of the ploughmen informed me that a few weeks before, while 

 ploughing a small gully, the plough had suddenly turned over a " heap 

 of different kinds of bones," and that he had collected them in a sack, 

 and carried them into the homestead. Before leaving the district I had 

 the pleasure of examining them and found they were composed of leg 



