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are described , which were wont to be instituted after a successful 
chase. Mr. Cormack as well as Mr. Mantell liave found tlie bones 
on both the North and the South Islands in great number in the 
vicinity of camping-grounds and fire-places of the natives. Mounds 
were found full of such bones, in which after great feasts the 
remnants of the meals were promiscuously interred. The flesh 
and eggs were eaten; the feathers were employed as ornament for 
the hair; the skulls were used for holding tattoo! ngpowder; the 
bones were converted into fish-hooks, and the colossal eggs were 
buried with the dead as provision during their long last journey 
to the lower regions. 
Consequently those huge birds were in former times the prin- 
cipal game of the natives, and were probably altogether extermin- 
ated in the course of a few centuries. They succumbed, — the 
larger the species, the sooner, — to the same fate, that is gra- 
dually sweeping the Kiwi, the Kakapo and the rat Kiore 1 in a 
similar manner, and before our eyes, from the face of the land. 2 
the sea coast , until they could escape no further, and thus slain. That also small 
heated stones were thrown into their way, which they swallowed and of which they 
died, is probable a mere Maori fable. 
1 This indigenous rat was so scarce already at, the time of the arrival of the 
first Europeans, that a chief, on observing the large European rats on board one of 
the vessels, entreated the captain, to let those rats run ashore, and thus enable the 
raising of some new and larger game. 
2 Dr. Thomson believes, that the Moas have become extinct since the middle 
of the 17 Lh century. Meurant, a seal-hunter, according to a communication of the 
Rev. Mr. Taylor (New Zealand Magaz, , April 1850), asserts his having seen Moa 
hones with the flesh on in Molyneux Harbour, South Island, as late as 1823. At 
any rate, natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions, conflagrations of woods 
and heaths are likewise very probable to have contributed to the diminishing of the 
Moa, family, in the swamp near Waikouaiti in South Island, Moa feet and legs have 
been found in an erect position, and the extraordinary number of Moa bones found 
in swamps is probably to be explained in this manner, that large flocks of those, 
birds driven by fire or by men, got lost in the swamps and perished there. Dr. 
Ilaast very recently bad the good fortune to make a most extraordinary discovery 
of that kind. A swamp near the Glenrnark home station (Province Canterbury) has 
long been celebrated for the quantity of Moa bones that have been found there. 
Dr. Ilaast found no less than twenty-five skeletons of the 1) in or n is clcp/iantojnis and 
Dinornis crassus , of different ages. The bones were in excellent preservation and 
perfect condition. They retain the usual proportion of animal matter, and have 
