islands. These huge extinct birds were, of course, among the first subjects of investigation; and soon a decided and very remarkable difference of opinion appeared. It was known from the first that the native inhabitants were accustomed to speak of these birds under the designation of moa, the name that in the other islands of Polynesia, from the Navigator group to Hawaii, was applied to the common domestic fowl, which was not known in New Zealand. The first inquirers, including Owen's missionary correspondents, had assumed, as a matter of course, that the Dinornis had existed in very recent times, and perhaps was not even yet extinct. But a class of skeptical investigators arose, who took a very different view. The leader of this school was Mr. (now Sir Julius) Haast, a distinguished geologist and naturalist, the author of a valuable work on the "Geology of the Provinces of Canterbury and Westland," and of many other treatises, in which, admitting the coexistence of man and the moas at a very remote period, answering to our prehistoric time—as man and the mammoth are known to have existed together in Europe—he denies that the present race of Maoris had ever known those great birds. In his view these creatures represented in New Zealand the gigantic quadrupeds which inhabited the northern hemisphere during the Post-pliocene or Quaternary period. If any of them survived that epoch, they had become extinct at an early day, and long before the ancestors of the modern Maoris had found their way to New Zealand.
Mr. Haast's view had in itself a certain plausibility, and it was maintained by himself and his followers with much firmness against many objectors, who brought forward a strong array of facts on the opposite side. The controversy has at length drawn the attention of one of the most eminent of European zoologists, Professor de Quatrefages. In an elaborate and very interesting paper on "Moas and Moa-Hunters," which has recently appeared, he sums up the controversy with judicial thoroughness, reviewing carefully all the published data, from the time of Owen to the latest contribution to the "Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," and comes to the conclusion that the earlier inquirers were right, and that Mr. Haast's view, in the form in which he proposes it, can not be sustained.[1] Indeed, the mere facts themselves, as they are set forth in this admirably lucid exposition, are overwhelming in their force, while the scientific skill with which they are marshalled, and the wealth of illustration which enforces the conclusions, are such as might be expected from the accomplished author.
He shows that many eggs and fragments of eggs of the moas have been discovered; that many feathers belonging to different species of these birds and to various parts of the body have been gathered in different places; and that even portions of the skeleton have been found which had muscles, tendons, and pieces of skin still adhering,
- ↑ "Les Moas et les Chasseurs de Moas," par M. A. de Quatrefages, pp. 43.
