186 



The bulk of later finds were made by Sir Julius von Haast, Captain 

 Hutton, and Mr. Aug. Hamilton, and the two most famous deposits were 

 Glenmark Swamp and Te Aute ; but it would take too much space to give 

 here an account of all the other extraordinary discoveries of Moa deposits 

 made by such men as Dr. Thomson, Mr. Earl, Mr. Thorne, Dr. H. O. 

 Forbes, and many others. Besides many fragments of eggshell, a number 

 of eggs have been found, which will be enumerated elsewhere. 



Feathers have been found at Clutha River, near Roxburgh, and also 

 in caves near Queenstown. Those from Clutha are mostly dark, being black 

 with white tips ; while the Queenstown ones resemble feathers of Apteryx 

 australis in colours. Professor Owen has shown that Megalapteryx huttoni 

 was feathered down to the toes, and in the plate I have represented it 

 clothed with feathers similar to the Clutha ones, which I believe belong to 

 this species. The Moas at one time must have been extraordinarily numerous, 

 both in numbers and species, and they varied in height from 2\ feet to 

 12 feet. Professor Parker has shown that some of the species had crests 

 of long feathers on the head, and, as some adult skulls of the same forms 

 show no signs of this, he infers that the males alone had this appendage. 

 There has been much discussion as to the time when the Moas became 

 extinct, and we know for certain that the two species, Dinornis maximus 

 and Anomalopteryx antiquus, belong to a much earlier geological epoch than 

 the bulk of the other species. It would be too lengthy for my purpose to 

 go into the arguments, but we can, by the study of the "kitchen middens" 

 of Maoris and their traditions, fairly adduce that the Maoris arrived in the 

 North Island some 600 years ago, that they hunted Moas, and that they 

 exterminated them about 100 to 150 years after their arrival. In the South, 

 or rather Central, Island, the Maoris appear to have arrived about 100 years 

 later, and to have exterminated the Moas about 350 years ago. It is only 

 fair to say, however, that Monsieur de Quatrefages adduces evidence in his 

 paper which goes far to prove that Moas existed down to the end of the 

 18th or even beginning of the 19th century in those parts of the Middle 

 Island not, or scantily, inhabited by Maoris. 



The Dinornithidae form a separate group of the order Ratitae, in no 

 way closely related to the Australian Emu {Dromaius), as many ornithologists 

 have asserted, but nearer to the South American Nandu (Rhea) than any 

 other living Ratitae, though exhibiting many characters in common with the 

 Apterygidae. There have been a number of classifications set up of this 

 family. The first by Reichenbach, in 1850, with 7 species and 7 genera ! 



