1848-49 SKELETON OF ‘MOA’ BURNED 319 
death, which is related in that number : ‘ The 
character of Carker as drawn throughout the book 
makes it evident to me that he was not the man 
either to act or to be acted upon in such a way ; 
not but that the scene is wrought up by a master- 
hand.’ 
On March 1 1 the last proofs of the ‘ Arche- 
type ’ were sent to press. 
During this month he carefully arranged the 
raoa'^ bones which had been sent hint by Colonel 
Wakefield. ‘ R. has made up one terrible-looking 
leg, which he intends to keep as a memento ; the 
rest he has been sorting out on the floor in the 
library, with papers full of various bones, after 
their kind, lying all around.’ 
Owen had a disa[)pointment this year with 
regard to the bones of the moa, for Sir George 
Grey, then Governor of New Zealand, had been 
busily colleoting for him, but unfortunately his 
house and most of its contents were destroyed 
by fire. 
‘ I lost,’ Sir George wrote to him, ‘ all my 
plate, china, linen, wine, and the most valuable of 
my books, besides curiosities, native songs of differ- 
ent countries, and objects of natural history, which 
I had been many years in collecting. I n your depart- 
ment I lost a magnificent collection of moa bones, 
including a complete skeleton of the largest moa 
which had ever been found. I had three complete 
^ Native name of Dinornis. 
