MOA REMAINS AT ALBURY. 1 97 



bones only, including several toe bones and claws, belonging to birds of 

 various sizes. Possibly a thorough search of the spot where they lay 

 would have resulted in finding all the bones belonging to each leg. The 

 case, however, seems to afford support to the theory that when the birds 

 were slain parts of them only were occasionally removed. It certainly 

 is difficult to conceive how the leg bones of several-sized birds could be 

 placed there by other than human agency. The great accumulation of 

 burnt eggshells found in the kitchen middens of the moa hunters points 

 to another potent cause, in fact, the chief one, operating steadily and 

 annually as the destroyer of the moas. The fiercest and swiftest species 

 could be exterminated in a few years by annually robbing their nests, 

 and certainly the cunning of the Maori would be equal to the occasion 

 in all cases. The fragments of eggshells we found in the ash heaps 

 varied considerably in thickness, and in the granular markings on their 

 surface, and the freshest chips occurred in the top layer of ashes. 



Now, in drawing conclusions from the evidence afforded by exami- 

 ning the ash mounds, their layered condition suggests that towards the 

 close of the moa age, the tribes by whom they were formed were 

 nomadic in habits, and wandered from the district for periods of several 

 years ; other evidence which seems to me to support these remarks is 

 the fact of many of the rocks having been painted over and over again, 

 while the fresher figures are truer and were given a higher finish. This 

 may be considered to have no bearing on the question, yet I think that 

 the nomadic tribes who were probably compelled to live and subsist on 

 the sea coast during part of the year would acquire a taste for sketching 

 them on the rocks when they returned to gather the eggs or hunt the 

 moas; certainly the best executed figures on the rocks at Albury are 

 those representing several species of fish. The occurrence also of marine 

 shells in the floors of the rock-shelters and ash heaps near the old ovens, 

 offers further proof of the moa hunters having occasionally visited, or 

 lived temporarily, on the seashore. 



The great age of the bones occurring in the deep, clamp fissures at 

 Albury, furnishes an important proof of the remote antiquity of the 

 moas. The peculiar conditions under which they are found have been 

 exceptionally favourable to their long and perfect preservation, while 

 the occurrence of their remains in the tertiary and more recent deposits, 

 and in the surface mould on the downs, illustrates the gradual 

 extinction of the birds for many ages from some not very clearly known 

 cause. The extremely hard and solid structure of* the matured bones 

 would naturally resist the solvents of the soil for a longer period than 

 the bones of other animals, but it is difficult to reconcile the fact of 

 the more delicate bones being fonnd sound and perfect in superficial 

 mould with the theory that the birds had perished where they lay four 

 thousand years ago. The subject, however, has been so exhaustively 

 dealt with by Sir Walter Buller, and the whole of the evidence and 

 views of both sides compiled and brought down to date in perfect order, 

 (loc. cit. page xviii.), that I refrain from discussing it here. When I 

 have examined the caves, rock shelters, etc., in the Opihi cave districts, 

 I will be able to deal with the subject more fully and to give details of 

 the work. 



So far I have not touched on the origin of the bones in the deep 



