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INTRODUCTION. 
inferred, by the analogy of other Struthious birds, that these represent the male and female of each 
species. 
Not the least interesting fact connected with these giant Wingless Birds is that they have passed 
away within the historic period. The remains of all the species mentioned above have been discovered 
intermingled with human bones ; they have been found, calcined and chopped, amid the rejectamenta 
of old Maori feasts in the ancient kitchen-middens of both Islands — facts which, quite apart from 
Maori tradition, prove incontestably that they were coeval with the early native inhabitants, and that 
their final extirpation was accelerated, if indeed it was not occasioned, by human agency. 
The only question remains — At what period of history did they cease to exist 1 The late 
Sir Julius von Haast, who had devoted years of study to the subject, came to the conclusion that the 
extinction of the various species of Dinorms dates back perhaps a thousand years, and that the 
association with man, as proved by the numerous kitchen-middens and cave-habitations which he 
himself explored, had relation to a prehistoric or autochthonous race which, in the remote past, 
inhabited New Zealand *. He wrote an elaborate paper, on “ Moas and Moa-hunters,” in support of 
this contention ; but I do not think this view of the subject has obtained much support. To my mind 
the evidences of the comparatively recent existence of, at any rate, several species of Dinornis are over- 
whelming. The circumstance already mentioned of the discovery of a skeleton with a portion of the 
skin and feathers attached, in such a climate as that of New Zealand, is entirely opposed to the 
theory of remote antiquity. 
Then, again, the comparatively recent date of the bones of even the larger species is attested by 
their chemical condition and the large amount of animal matter they contain. As compared with a 
recent tibia of the Ostrich, containing 26-51 of animal matter, the fossil femur of Dinornis didiformis 
has been found to contain 25-99. According to another comparative analysis, a recent femur of the 
Ostrich contained 34'86 of animal matter, and a fossil femur of Dinornis struthioides 37'86. As 
Professor Owen has already remarked, this superabundance of animal matter in the bone of 
the extinct bird is due chiefly to the fact of its being a marrow bone, whilst that of the Ostrich 
contains air. 
With many of these buried skeletons are found little heaps of crop-stones, of a kind that are now 
met with only at a distance of forty or fifty miles from the place of interment. I have in my possession 
a very interesting collection of these “ gizzard-stones,” consisting of quartz-pebbles, carnelians, and 
* Even this champion for the great antiquity of the Moa 'would appear to have latterly somewhat changed his views on 
this subject. I have a letter in my possession from him stating that having read the report of my speech in the Native Land 
Court, as Counsel for the Ngatiapa in the Rangatira case, with the Appendix containing an account of Apa-hapai-taketake and 
the pet Moa of the Ngatituwharetoa tribe — a story accepted by both the contending parties as true he felt almost constrained to 
abandon the ground he had so persistently taken up. 
The following is an extract from the evidence given on that occasion by the leading witness, Hue Te Huri : — 1 have heard 
the name of Apa-hapai-taketake an ancestor of the Ngatiapa tribe. He was the original source of the quarrel. Apa-hapai-take- 
take stole a Moa, which was a pet bird of the Ngatituwharetoa. While doing so he fell over a cliff and broke his thigh and was 
thenceforward nicknamed 1 Hapakoki ’ (‘ Hop and go one ’). He got off with the Moa in spite of this. Then Ngatituwharetoa 
heard of it, and they went down upon his place and carried off his wife Hiuemoatu in payment (utu) for the Hoa which he 
had stolen. Then Hapakoki in great wrath went and seized the kumaras of Kawerau ; and Ngatituwharetoa, in equal wrath, 
made an attack on the Ngatiapa. Then the Ngatiapa left and came to Maunganui, on the Upper Rangitikei ; for all this 
happened at Putauaki, near the Awa-o-te-Atua, in the Bay of Plenty. The Ngatituwharetoa pursued them and attacked them 
at Maunganui. Ngatiapa moved on south and settled on the north-east side of the Taupo Lake ; hut they were followed up and 
again attacked, and they again moved on to Tawhare-Papauma and Moturoa, south of Taupo, and close to Rotoaira, on the edge 
of the lake of that name.” 
