discovered in New Zealand. 
103 
will seem the more remarkable when we consider, that 
a very great number of New Zealand appellatives are 
not only derived and easily traceable, but are, also, 
generally highly expressive of some action or quality of 
the thing itself; chiefly, too, is this to be observed when 
such action or quality is peculiar or uncommon. But in 
the Moa , the most uncommon animal New Zealand has 
ever produced, (especially in the estimation of a native), 
we have a cognomen which, seems an entire exception to 
the common rule; for, as far as I understand it at pre¬ 
sent, it has, in reference to this immense animal, no 
meaning whatever. Further, it may not be amiss also to 
notice, en passant, that it is of rare occurrence in the 
language to find any thing bearing so very short an ap¬ 
pellation as the bird in question. In the Friendly 
Society and Sandwich groupes, the term Moa has 
been, I believe, invariably given by the natives of those 
islands to the domestic cock, and used as the proper 
name for that animal by the missionaries there. The 
New Zealander, in relating his fabulous account of the 
Moa, almost invariably said it was like a Tikaokao, 
i.e. a cock, (they having given the cock that name from 
its crow, which to them sounded like those letters when 
drawn out and pronounced after their manner,) and that 
it was adorned with wattles, &c. Without at all, at 
present, entering into the question as to what country 
or countries the existing race of New Zealanders emi¬ 
grated from to these islands, the popular belief, that, at 
least, a portion of them is ol Malay oiigin, is, I think, 
in connexion with the name of this bird, worthy of 
notice; for, whilst we know the term Moa is used to 
denote the cock in the Friendly Islands, and other 
groups, it is only in the isles of the Indian Archipelago 
that the cassowary ( Casuarius Casoar, Briss.) is to be 
found. And this bird, too, is “ heavy and stoutly built,” 
