rageous,” “polygamous,” &c.; and, as many of these compound words were also used by Maoris, it is probable that they had no reference whatever to the Dinornis.; certainly the Tongan, Tahitian, Samoan, &c., words did not apply to the Dinornis. Nor did the scanty allusions in New Zealand song and proverb ever mention any attribute (such as huge size, &c.) of the bird—it might have been any bird. He believed that the pictures and descriptions of the bird sent (as reconstructed by Professor Owen) to every Maori tribe had been fitted to old traditions of a lost bird. Certainly it was monstrous that, when every effort had been made to get reliable evidence thirty years ago, a story should now be brought forward asserting that Kawaua Paipai (who only died four years ago) and his tribe hunted the moa in droves at Rangatapu. He (Mr. Tregear) had interviewed that day a number of old Maoris—one a centenarian—who had known Kawaua Paipai all their lives, and who had lived in Taranaki Province; and they laughed to scorn the idea of moas being “battued” on the Waimate Plains and they not having heard of such an occurrence. It was much easier to tell an untruth than to hunt moas in modern days.

Sir James Hector was astonished at this fruitless discussion being revived. Mr. Tregear had not gone back far enough in our “Transactions,” or he would have found Mr. Colenso's reports of earlier date than 1878 referred to. In 1840 Mr. Colenso relates that he himself had gone out with a party of natives expecting to capture a live moa. He would also have found the reference to Polack's account of the large struthious bird called the “moa,” gathered from native tradition long before any bones had been described. The manner in which the moa-bones were found associated with remains of human occupation throughout New Zealand afforded clear evidence that these huge birds had been eaten and exterminated by a race that could not be distinguished by any habits of life from the Maoris of a few years ago. The determination of the epoch of the first appearance and the date of the final disappearance of the moa was more a question for a geologist than a philologist. The paucity of reference to the moa and its true nature in the early collected vocabularies was due to the circumstance that those who questioned the Maoris had no conception of the existence of such an extraordinary bird, while to the Maoris it was such common information that they never thought of mentioning it. Bishop Hadfield had explained this to him. But there were many allusions and traditions that referred to the moa. Certainly it was more rational to hold that the word “moa,” as used by the Maoris, referred to the large birds that were so abundant than to a domestic fowl, of the existence of which in New Zealand until of late years there was not a scrap of evidence. He would remind the Society that in 1876, in this room, he had exhibited a feather with an after-plume, exactly agreeing with the feathers found on the moa's neck at Clyde, in Otago, and which feather he had taken off an ancient taiaha in the British Museum collection. As to direct evidence, he could only say that the great chief Rewi told him that his grandfather had killed moas.

Mr. Higginson said that he had seen in the York Museum the moa's neck and skin referred to, and its state of preservation did not give the impression that it was of very ancient date. The last recorded occurrence of the dodo in Mauritius was in 1680, and yet few or none of its bones were found until he himself collected some in 1865; and until this latter date the existence of the dodo was almost doubted.

Mr. McKay said that Mr. Tregear had in effect said that the Maoris had no knowledge whatever of the moa. It must, however, be admitted that, in as far as the tools and implements of the moa-hunters could be put in evidence, they proved distinctly that the moa-hunter was identical with the Maori. The excavations in Moa-bone Cave, Sumner, showed this clearly. The antiquity of any particular deposit might or