256 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



wild state, they were the only placental mammals, except the ubiquitous 

 rat and mouse, and had unquestionably been introduced by the 

 PapuanSj who visited the northern portion of the country. There is 

 therefore no reason to suppose that the Negritos, whom the Maoris 

 found in New Zealand, and who have left such strong racial traces 

 here, knew anything about the dog, far less possessed and tamed them. 

 As regards the extinction of the moa, I do not feel sure that they are 

 extinct, even now, in remote localities, as the Maoris believe in their 

 existence, and it seems perfectly certain that the last of them hereabouts 

 were killed with firearms, about the time of the introduction of 

 Christianity, as the natives assert. I have myself found moa-bones 

 which had unquestionably been cut in two, and had the flesh chopped 

 off them witli keen steel weapons, and during my early residence in the 

 colony, I met many Maoris who seemed to have perfect knowledge of 

 the bird, and said they had often eaten its flesh. Probably it held its 

 ground far longer in this wooded region than in the open country on 

 the eastern sides of both islands : and this has led to the differing views 

 respecting it, entertained by enquirers in the two localities. — PL C. Field. 



Migration of Eels. — Mr. S. Percy Smith contributes some 

 notes as to the migrations of eels, which I can corroborate. These fish 

 come up from the sea in large shoals, about the months of October and 

 November, when about two inches long and as thick as a straw, and 

 work their way up the tributary streams to very high levels, large 

 numbers living in swamps. They surmount the waterfalls by wriggling 

 upwards among the wet moss beside the falls ; and the Maoris assert 

 that each fish takes hold of the tail of the one in front of him with his 

 mouth, so that they all help each other to ascend. This much is 

 certain. If the head of the column is dislodged, the whole fall down ; 

 and the Maoris take advantage of this to catch large quantities of these 

 " tuna-riki " (little eels), by holding flax baskets below a column and 

 then detaching it. They then dry them for winter food, just as they do 

 the whitebait, and the little eyeless fish of the volcanic springs at 

 the head of the Eoto-aire lake. I know streams, tributaries of the 

 Mangawhero and Wangaehu rivers, which swarm with eels that have 

 surmounted falls 200 feet to 300 feet high. Again on the west side of 

 the Wanganui river, near the heads, there was formerly a large swamp, 

 the surplus water of which trickled into the river over a flat of sand 

 several chains in width. In the autumn of 1856 or thereabouts, a 

 gentleman who had been to the pilot station, and was returning late in 

 the evening, found a great number of large eels wriggling their way 

 across the sand from the swamp to the river, and brought a string of 

 them, as heavy as lie could carry, back to town with him. For some 

 nights afterwards, several of us visited the spot, and secured a large 

 number. The migration lasted for about a week. The Maoris are 

 perfectly well aware that the large eels migrate to the sea with the first 

 autumn rains, and catch great numbers of them with traps at that 

 season. The rain, no doubt, causes the water of the streams and lakes 

 to rise, and so increases the pressure as to warn the fish to migrate. 

 It was probably in this way that the eels of the Chatham Island lagoon, 



