GENERAL NOTES. 263 



bird are very slight and obscure, generally, indeed, fabulous. There is 

 also one very ancient poem called "The Lament of Ikaherengatu," in 

 which the phrase " Ka ngaro i te ngaro a te moa " (Lost as the moa is 

 lost) occurs, which certainly shows that the bird was not in existence 

 when the poem was composed. The so called traditions of its habits 

 appear to be, in large part at least, late deductions from these words 

 and phrases, and we must conclude that, in the North Island, the moa 

 was exterminated by the Maoris soon after their arrival in New 

 Zealand ; that is not less than 400 or 500 years ago. 



In the South Island there are no names of places containing the 

 word moa ) but here remains have been found — either skeletons lying 

 on the surface or bones with skin and ligaments still attached — which 

 give the impression that the birds were living here not more than ten 

 or twelve years ago. Now the bones which are said to have strewn the 

 surface so abundantly when the first settlers came, had all disappeared 

 in fifteen years ; so that it is plain either some change in the surrounding 

 conditions caused the bones to decay, or that none of the bones which 

 were so abundant in 1861, were more than fifteen years old. But as 

 we cannot believe that moas were abundant in Otago in 1846, we must 

 fall back on the opinion that the fires lighted by the early settlers 

 to clear the scrub so altered the conditions under which the bones had 

 been preserved that they soon decayed, in which case we cannot say how 

 long the bones may have been lying there. It is something the same 

 with those bones which still have dried skin and ligaments attached. 

 They are so fresh that, unless the birds lived a few years ago, they must 

 have been preserved under specially favourable circumstances ; and 

 there are reasons for thinking that the small district of Central Otago. 

 in which alone these remains have been found, is one specially favourable 

 for preserving animal remains. If this be so we cannot say for how 

 many years they may have been preserved, perhaps for centuries, and 

 as we have every reason to believe, upon the authority of the Rev. J. 

 W. Stack, that the ancestors of the Ngai Tahu, who have inhabited the 

 South Island for the last 200 or 250 years, never had any personal 

 knowledge of the birds, we must allow that the moa has been extinct 

 for at least that time. On the other hand, it is quite certain that the 

 moa was exterminated by the Maoris, and the Maoris are nob supposed 

 to have inhabited the South Island for more than 500 years, so that the 

 time of extinction must fall between these dates. It seems improbable 

 that the Ngatimamoe, the last remnant of whom inhabited the West 

 Coast sounds a few years ago, were moadiunters. The moa-hunters of 

 the South Island were not cannibals, and as Te-rapuwai and Waitaha, 

 the tribes who preceded the Ngatimamoe, are said to have been peaceful 

 and to have '"covered the land like ants," it lends support to the Maori 

 tradition that it was they who exterminated the moa and made the 

 shell heaps on the beach. If this be so the moas were exterminated in 

 the South Island about 300 or 400 years ago ; that is, about a hundred 

 years later than in the North Island. 



