Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/684

662 with some feathers, all in a remarkable state of preservation. Nor were these preserved in ice, like the Siberian mammoth; they had simply been dried in the sand, and the bones had not been in the slightest degree mineralized. Further, the traditions of the natives about these birds are perfectly clear. They describe their size, their shape, their habits, and the manner in which they were hunted. The native proverbs refer to them. It was the habit of the male and female of these birds to go constantly together, and the Maoris speak of fighting "two against two, like the moas." They had a particular kind of obsidian knife, which they used in cutting up these birds at their feasts. The prayers or incantations which they were accustomed to recite before setting out on a moa-hunt are still remembered. Such a hunt was a serious undertaking, for the monstrous game could crush a man with one blow of the foot. The very paths which were made by the birds through the mountain thickets, and beside which the hunters were accustomed to lie in wait for them, can still be plainly traced. Furthermore, Mr. J. W. Hamilton published, in 1875, in the "Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," his notes of a conversation held in 1844 with an aged Maori, who, as he remembered Cook, must have been then more than seventy-five years old. He had seen a moa, and described it with all the minute precision of personal knowledge. Finally, if these statements should be questioned, we have the decisive fact that the remains of the great feasts of the natives, which have been found in several places, show the bones of the moa mingled with those of the native dog. Now, the New Zealand dog is the Polynesian variety, used only for food; and the traditions of the natives are quite clear as to the fact that their ancestors, when they came to the country some four or five centuries ago, brought the dog with them.

M. de Quatrefages shows, however, that Mr. Haast's opinions have some foundation, though not precisely in the sense intended by him. Of the eleven species of moa, one, and this the largest of all, the Dinornis giganteus, seems to have been extinct before the advent of the Maoris. At least this is the inference which may be drawn from the fact that none of the bones of this species have been found among the remains of their feasts. Of the next in size, the Dinornis robustus, which was but slightly less in stature, the remains have only once been found in this position; and those of the huge Palapteryx ingens have been thus discovered in only three instances. It would seem, therefore, that the largest of these creatures were either extinct or dying out when man appeared on the scene; but this appearance, it must be remembered, was a very recent event. The result is, that Mr. Haast's view can only be sustained by reforming his geologic chronology, or rather nomenclature—at least, for New Zealand—and bringing the Post-pliocene era down to our own times. And this conclusion suggests a consideration of much larger import. If so good a