MOA AND MAORI

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 125, 29 May 1930, Page 10

MOA AND MAORI

IN DAYS GONE BY

NEW ZEALAND'S GIANT BIRD

HISTORY FROM BONES

A little less than a hundred years ago Professor Owen, in England, on the strength of a single fragment of bone sent to him from New Zealand, and now in tho British Museum, announced to the scientific world that there must have once existed in the Antipodes a race of gigantic birds. The scientists of tho day ridiculed his inference, but before many years bad elapsed the- learned professor was proved to be right. More and more bones were scat to England, and tales from the Maori were collected. That New Zealand had been the home of the world's biggest bird became an established tfact. Even now, after nearly a hundred years of investigation, by no means everything is known about the gigantic flightless bird, and as to its origin, habits, and so forth there is still room for speculation. What is known definitely and what may be logically inferred was retailed last night by Mr. W. E. B. Oliver, Director of" the Dominion Museum, when he gave hia presidential address to the general meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society, the title of hu paper being "The Moa: Its Origin, Development, and Extinction." Exhibits of massive leg bones, skulls, feathers, and pieces of egg-shell added interest to the lecture.

Amongst the first slides shown were several of some of the first drawings of the moa, and of various subsequent reconstructions. Some of these, Mr. Oliver pointed out, < were probably wrong. In order to balance, the moa's body was probably more horizontal than it was often depicted. The two reconstructions made for the Wembley Exhibition erred in making the oody too upright, and were not very good. There was no doubt about the moa not having wings; the structure of. its skeleton proved that. The Maoris, however, had a legend that it napped its Capers'as it ran, like au ostrich, and in this they were very likely right. They may have been right, too, in the legend that the moa had a crest on its head, for certain pits in the skull seemed to point to this possibility. The moa's ancestors may have flown, but the moa had feathers characteristic of the wingless and flightless birds, and could never itself have flown. Moa bones in large quantities bad been found all over New Zealand, but very few complete skeletons, said Mr. Oliver. Tho trouble was that many skeletons had been pieced together from bonos belonging to different birds, henco there had been confusion when it came to sorting the moa into species. The lecturer detailed his method of classifying bones, saying that his conclusions pointed to the existence of about twenty-two species falling into five groups. OUT-SIZE EGGS. There had been two finds only of complete ( eggs. One complete egg, measuring ten inches by seven, was found at Kaikoura in 18G6, and more recently three had been found in a river deposit in Otago. Broken eggshells were comparatively common. Vrofessor Owen, on insufficient data, had speculated that,tho largest moa's egg measured 17in by 13in, but the lecturer thought that this was an exaggeration. It was a problem to decide how tho moa reached New Zealand, said Mr. .Oliver, and all theories on the subject were at best speculation. It certainly could not have grown, hence it must have come "by land in the far-off days when New Zealand was joined to other land masses. There seemed to bo an affinity between, the South American rhea and the moa, and it had been suggested that the moa car- to Now Zealand from America, via the Antarctic Continent. The -evidence, he thought, pointed rather to a northern route. It probably came during the Cretaceous period when mammals had barely developed, hence tho absence of native mammals in New Zealand. WHAT THE MAORI SAID. The Maori knew the moa by several names, and had a number of legends about it. They said that it could run with considerable'speed and could defend itself by kicking, one kick being enough to kill a dog or even a man. It fed alongside rivers and lakes, eating shellfish/crayfish, and fish. It liked tho open country, entering tho fringe of the bush to find fruit and berries. Its eggs, said the Maori, took two moons to hatch, and the lady moa did the sitting whilst the gentleman acted as guardian and food-forager. Its voice was a grunt, like the voice of a trumpet. One could certainly infer, said Mr. Oliver, that, the"moa was a vegetarian, owing to the quantities of gizzard stones which had been found with the

bones. ' There was no doubt whatever, said Mr. Oliver, that the Maori hunted the moa, and this would be a good reason for the bird becoming extinct. Many moa remains, had been found in swamps, and this might be due to the fact that the birds were driven there during the hunt or. when the Maori cleared the land by burning. The moa, he thought, probably became extinct in the North Island before it- vanished from the South Island. The last moa might have died as recently as 200 years ago, for some of the remains found suggested a comparatively recent existence. A very hearty vote of thanks was accorded Mr. Oliver for his interesting lecture, and the audience departed for home with the feeling that life when I the moa roamed tho country must have 'been somewhat exciting. In addition to having the wrath of his irate wahine awaiting him on the threshold of the ! family whare, the suburbanite returning home from a hectic evening might well encounter along the dark track_ a ten or twelve-foot moa, tho odds being on the survival of tho moa 'rather than that; of the reveller.