520 Proceedings. 
the last month has been the driest November known in the colony for 
twenty years. : 
Captain Stoney exhibited a model (incomplete) of a lever bridge to be 
constructed of timber, in one arch, and recommended its applicability to 
number of skulls which I found there to that of the pelvis and bones of 
the extremities—of the former I have forty or fifty, some wonderfully per- 
fect, and all, though differing in species, and in size from 8 or 9 inches to 4, 
referable to Owen’s genus Palapteryx. In the figure of this, however, 
restored from former less complete specimens, the length is too great in 
proportion ; and the mandible has not the depression in its upper outline 
shown in the restoration. : 
Your readers must not imagine that any of these eggs are perfect—the 
best of them wants at least an eighth of its surface. Farther, I think it 
very unlikely that any will ever be found under the same circumstances 
as those of the Awamoa, which shall not be more or less imperfect—for 
this reason: the ancient savage having cooked his egg—I think these were 
roasted ~. would, so soon, that is as it cooled, break off and throw aside suffi- 
cient of the shell to admit him to its interior, when pi or no pi he ate it, 
and threw the shell into the umu, when the abominable little ancestral 
imps seem to have taken the same delight in pelting it to smithereens that 
our civilized infants take in ‘‘shying” at bottles. Our only chance is a 
swamp, a sandhill, or a peatmoss, (from the last I intend to produce fea- 
thers, and perhaps even a Moa quill to write you some future ‘“‘ notes ;”) 
but the chances are great against an egg which may even have died a 
natural death in either of these being found complete, much greater against 
its being unbroken. And it may be very long before such another nest as 
the Ruamoa is found—many such there cannot be. Almost all of mine 
are partially taken to pieces and packed, but I will endeavour to send one 
so packed that it can be opened at Wellington for the benefit of those who — 
may wish to see the eggs of other days. M. St. Hilare says the broken 
_ Mipyornithic (what a word!) egg can be restored, but does not seem very 
content on the subject. I am certain that I could now replace all the 
fragments of a Moa’s egg could I find them all, and should any of your 
subscribers, more fortunate than I, succeed in obtaining such a treasure, 
I will gladly, if forwarded to me through you, return the egg recon- 
structed by the next vessel: two or three hours would be sufficient. 
Though we do not gain any great insight into the habits of the early 
inhabitants of these islands from this discovery of their buried traces, 
think some points worthy of observation. Nothing can be inferred from 
the one rat; it might have got there by accident, but it is clear it was 
either rare in the district, or not then commonly used as food: T in- 
cline to the latter opinion. It is clear that the dog was not only known to 
them at a period earlier than its surmised importation, but was a not rare 
article of food, though in this district now only used in that capacity at 
Moeraki, where the howling of te Wakaemi’s future dinners make the 
sleepless traveller wish them cooked. 
Another theory of which this may assist in forming the basis is this—that 
in this country, admirably adapted as it is for a class settlement of Moas, 
the Palapteryx survived the Dinornis, the latter, which in its largest 
varieties abounded at the period of the formation of the turbary deposit at 
Waikawaiti, having become very scarce when the Waitaha came to forage in 
the neighbourhood, Mii 
Unlike the Rangatapu remains, there were among these no human bones 
whatever ; cannibalism seems then to have followed the extinction or great 
diminution of the Moa,—but too much reliance must not be placed on the 
