262 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



Throughout the pliocene period the Moas flourished greatly; but 

 in the pleistocene they must, in the South Island, have died in large 

 numbers, for how else could such immense quantities of bones have got 

 together in the peat-beds at Glenmark and at Hamilton in Central 

 Otago. It has often been suggested that flocks of birds, attempting to 

 escape from fires, rushed into the swamps and perished. But when we 

 remember that these Moas died thousands of years ago, long before 

 there were any human inhabitants to light fires, it will be seen that 

 this surmise is quite out of the question. Only two hypotheses appear 

 to be possible to account for the facts. Either the birds walked into the 

 swamp and were drowned or else their dead bodies were washed in. 

 The first hypothesis is probably the explanation of the deposit at Te 

 Aute near Napier, because many of the leg bones were found upright in 

 their natural position. But at Glenmark and at Hamilton the bones 

 were lying in all directions, as often upside down as in any other 

 position, and the peat-beds were only a few feet thick, and filled with 

 bones up to the very top. We cannot, therefore, suppose that these 

 Moas were swamped, and there is evidence in both of these cases to 

 shew that the dead bodies of birds were washed in by floods. We find 

 corroborative evidence of this in the alluvial plains of Central Otago, 

 for these always contain numerous bones wherever a stream enters 

 them from the hills. 



But how are we to account for the number of dead birds washed 

 down from the hills? There are two remarkable facts connected with 

 these bone deposits at Hamilton and Glenmark. One is the very large 

 proportion of bones of young birds from one-half to three-quarters grown ; 

 and the other is the absence of moa ears shell. These two facts seem to 



GO 



show that the birds perished in the autumn or the winter, when the 

 birds of the year were not full grown, and when the females did not 

 contain any hardened eggs. Also, it is evident that dead moas could 

 not be washed into swamps under the present climatic conditions, and 

 the explanation of the puzzle must lie in the fact that in pleistocene 

 times, when these bone deposits were formed, the climate was very 

 different from what it is now. At that time the eccentricity of the 

 earth's orbit was very great, and when winter in the Southern Hemi- 

 sphere happened in aphelion, long cold winters were followed by short 

 and very hot summers. It seems probable, therefore, that the early 

 winter snows killed large numbers of moas and other birds on the hills, 

 that their bodies were floated down by summer floods and avalanches 

 caused by the melting snow, and that they were deposited in hollows at 

 the foot of the hills. As the pleistocene period passed way the climate 

 got more equable and the surviving moas once more increased and 

 multiplied, until they were ultimately exterminated by the hand of 

 man. 



All are now agreed that the moas were exterminated by the 

 ancestors of the Maoris, and the only question upon which opinion is 

 still divided is, How Ions was this &"o1 The case seems to me to stand 

 thus. In the North Island there are several names of places in which 

 the word moa is incorporated, but in the great number of Maori tales 

 and ] oems which have been collected by Europeans the allusions to the 



