THE AGE OE NEW ZEALAND. 
443 
shells with one end charred, evidently proving that they had 
been cooked and used as food. Meurant, an old sealer, who 
was acquainted with the country fifty years ago, stated 
that he saw the leg of a moa cooked, which was offered 
him as food, he expressed his horror, thinking it was part of 
a human being, but was assured it belonged to a bird. 
It is only quite recently that traces of a living moa have 
been observed ; whilst Mr. Brunner, chief surveyor of the 
province of Nelson, and Mr. Maling of the survey depart- 
ment, accompanied by a native, were engaged in surveying 
on the ranges between the Riwaka and Takaka valleys, they 
observed one morning, on going to their work, the foot- 
prints of what appeared to be a large bird, whose tracks they 
followed for a short distance, but lost them at last among 
rocks and scrub ; the footprints, which were well defined 
wherever the ground was soft, were fourteen inches in 
length, with a spread of eleven at the points of the three 
toes, the footmarks were about thirty inches apart. 
On examining the bones of a moa’s foot in the Wellington 
Museum, the toe was found to measure without integuments 
eight inches and a half, and it evidently belonged to a skeleton 
of a very large bird ; the length of the impression of the toe 
observed by those gentlemen was ten inches ; the size of 
the footprints, and the great stride of the bird, could only 
have been those of the moa, and has led to the belief that a 
solitary one may yet be in existence. The district is full of 
limestone caves, of the same character as those in the neigh- 
bouring district of Aorere, where such a quantity of moa 
bones were found ; it is highly probable that it was a night 
bird, like its congener the kiwi, hence the difficulty of ascer- 
taining whether it still survives. 
The recent existence, therefore, of such birds, the charac- 
teristic inhabitants of a post-tertiary period, together with 
the ancient and primitive character of the New Zealand isles, 
justifies the conclusion that the southern hemisphere as a 
whole, and those islands in particular, have preserved that 
state of vegetation and peculiar forms of life which existed 
in the other half of the globe, at that remote period when 
similar organizations and conditions prevailed. 
