398 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
plumage, and only found on the tops of the highest mountains. 
It was caught by spreading a white garment on the ground, 
which it mistook for snow. The natives speak of an immense 
bird which lived on the tops of the mountains of the Middle 
Island. They called it the powakai ; it laid only two eggs— 
one became a male and the other a female. It devoured men. 
This bird is alluded to in several of their traditions. 
The natives speak of another member of this family, which 
they name the kiwi papa whenua, a still larger species, which 
they describe as having been full seven feet high ; it likewise 
had a very long bill, with which it made large holes in the 
ground, in search after worms. This bird is now extinct, but 
there are persons living who have seen it. Rauparaha told me 
he had eaten it in his youth, which might be about seventy 
years ago, and when that Chief died, his corpse was said to 
have been ornamented with some of its feathers. 
But of all the birds which have once had existence in New 
Zealand, by far the most remarkable is the moa, dinornis of 
Ow'en; perhaps it was the largest bird which ever had 
existence, at least during the more recent period of our earth’s 
history; and it is by no means certain that it is even now 
extinct. I first discovered its remains in 1839, at Taurano-a 
and Waiapu; but in 1844, I met with a very large collection 
of the bones of this bird mingled with those of the seal. They 
were laid in little hillocks at the mouth of the Waingongoro; 
each heap was composed of the bones of several species of the 
apterix. They are abundant on almost every part of the 
North Island, south of Mokau, and throughout the Middle 
Island, but have not been discovered further north, probably 
because there were no grassy plains there for it to feed over. 
Wherever the remains of the moa are found, there is ge¬ 
nerally a small heap of round quartz pebbles, about the size 
of walnuts, which were doubtless swallowed for digestion. It 
is probable that this wonderful bird was not much less than 
sixteen feet high, and its bones are half the size of the 
elephant’s. 
The Fam. Rallidce, is rather an extensive one, though 
* The word Moa in the islands, is the common name of the domestic fowl. 
