Moa Bones Research Articles

On a Recent Discovery of the Remains of Extinct Birds in New Zealand

A DEPOSIT of moa bones, larger than has been found for many years, has just been discovered near the town of Oamaru, in the province of Otago, in the South Island of this colony. Their presence was indicated by the disinterring of a bone during the ploughing of a field, by the proprietor of which the circumstance was communicated to Dr. H. de Lautour, of Oamaru. This gentleman, who is well known through his papers on the diatomaceous deposits discovered by him in his district, at once inspected the spot. Finding that the deposit was large, he first secured, through the kindness of the proprietor, the inviolability of the ground, and then telegraphed the information to the Canterbury Museum. I lost no time in proceeding to Oamaru with one of my assistants, and superintended the digging out of the bones in a systematic manner. The site of the deposit was at Enfield, some ten miles to the north-west of the town, on ground elevated several hundred feet above the level of the sea, in a shallow bayleted hollow, into which the unbroken surface of the expansive slope gently descending from the Kurow hills to the open vale of the Waireka (a stream that rises further to the west) has sunk here for some 7 to 8 feet below the general level, and which, proceeding with a gentle gradient valleywards, becomes a ditch-like conduit for a tributary of the Waireka. In the centre of this depression, which does not exceed 10 to 12 yards in width, the ground was of a dark brown colour, damp and peaty. On removing the upper layer of soil for a depth of 3 to 4 inches round where the bones had first been brought to the surface, and whereon was strewn abundance of small crop-stones, a bed of very solid peat was reached, and firmly embedded in it were seen the extremities of numerous Dinornis bones, most of them in excellent preservation, though dyed almost black. Further digging showed that certainly many of the skeletons were complete, and had been but slightly, if at all, disturbed since the birds had decayed. Owing, however, to the close manner in which they were packed together, and especially in which the limbs were intertwined, it was rarely possible to extricate the bones in the order of their relations, or to identify with certainty the various bones of the same skeleton, each bone having to be extracted as the circumstances of the moment directed. In many cases, again, only the pelvis and femora could be traced in situ, the vertebrae and remaining leg-bones being indistinguishable in the general agglomeration. It seemed evident that the birds had not died in an erect posture, but more probably with their limbs bent under them or in the same plane with the body. In some instances, beneath the sternum were found, lying quite undisturbed, the contents of the stomach, consisting of more or less triturated grass mingled with crop-stones. The quantity of these smoothed,rounded (chiefly white quartz) pebbles— in size from about that of a bean to that of a plum—mingled with the bones was enormous, and would, if collected, have formed more than a cart-load. Except where the bones were, there were no pebbles of any sort, no small stones nor even sand, anywhere around. The nearest place where pebbles of the same composition are to be found is. I was informed, several miles distant.

On a Recent Discovery of the Remains of Extinct Birds in New Zealand.

A DEPOSIT of moa bones, larger than has been found for many years, has just been discovered near the town of Oamaru, in the province of Otago, in the South Island of this colony. Their presence was indicated by the disinterring of a bone during the ploughing of a field, by the proprietor of which the circumstance was communicated to Dr. H. de Lautour, of Oamaru. This gentleman, who is well known through his papers on the diatomaceous deposits discovered by him in his district, at once inspected the spot. Finding that the deposit was large, he first secured, through the kindness of the proprietor, the inviolability of the ground, and then telegraphed the information to the Canterbury Museum. I lost no time in proceeding to Oamaru with one of my assistants, and superintended the digging out of the bones in a systematic manner. The site of the deposit was at Enfield, some ten miles to the north-west of the town, on ground elevated several hundred feet above the level of the sea, in a shallow bayleted hollow, into which the unbroken surface of the expansive slope gently descending from the Kurow hills to the open vale of the Waireka (a stream that rises further to the west) has sunk here for some 7 to 8 feet below the general level, and which, proceeding with a gentle gradient valleywards, becomes a ditch-like conduit for a tributary of the Waireka. In the centre of this depression, which does not exceed 10 to 12 yards in width, the ground was of a dark brown colour, damp and peaty. On removing the upper layer of soil for a depth of 3 to 4 inches round where the bones had first been brought to the surface, and whereon was strewn abundance of small crop-stones, a bed of very solid peat was reached, and firmly embedded in it were seen the extremities of numerous Dinornis bones, most of them in excellent preservation, though dyed almost black. Further digging showed that certainly many of the skeletons were complete, and had been but slightly, if at all, disturbed since the birds had decayed. Owing, however, to the close manner in which they were packed together, and especially in which the limbs were intertwined, it was rarely possible to extricate the bones in the order of their relations, or to identify with certainty the various bones of the same skeleton, each bone having to be extracted as the circumstances of the moment directed. In many cases, again, only the pelvis and femora could be traced in situ, the vertebrae and remaining leg-bones being indistinguishable in the general agglomeration. It seemed evident that the birds had not died in an erect posture, but more probably with their limbs bent under them or in the same plane with the body. In some instances, beneath the sternum were found, lying quite undisturbed, the contents of the stomach, consisting of more or less triturated grass mingled with crop-stones. The quantity of these smoothed,rounded (chiefly white quartz) pebbles— in size from about that of a bean to that of a plum—mingled with the bones was enormous, and would, if collected, have formed more than a cart-load. Except where the bones were, there were no pebbles of any sort, no small stones nor even sand, anywhere around. The nearest place where pebbles of the same composition are to be found is. I was informed, several miles distant.

Evidence of a Wing in Dinornis.

IN 1889, Mr. A. Hamilton, of the Otago University, submitted to me some of the Moa bones he had exhumed from a swamp near Te Aute, in the North Island of this colony. Among them there were several very diminutive scapulo-coracoids and sterna, which I hope soon to figure and describe. Among the former was one which presented a small but distinct hollow in the situation where the glenoid cavity occurs in the winged Ratitæ. I made a sketch at the time, and exhibited the bone at one of the meetings of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. Though satisfied in my own mind that this hollow did represent a humerus articulation, I have been unable to find confirmation of its existence in any other scapulo-coracoid among the Moa collections I have examined. Among the bones, however, which I lately dug up from a peaty hollow near Oamaru, in the South Island, I have found a large scapulo-coracoid presenting a deep, well-marked depression, with a beautifully smooth and polished concavity, which leaves no room for doubt that it has been a functional glenoid cavity for a humerus possessing a head not less substantial at least than that in the Cassowaries. The accompanying drawing (half the natural size), made by camera lucida, will convey better than a de scription the form and position of the depression. Proximally to the cavity, and separated from it by a smooth ridge, there is a shallow impression (not seen in the figure), as if it were an antitrochanter for some tuberosity on the humerus. The coracoidal termination of the bone fits perfectly into a deep and rounded depression in a sternum obtained at the same time and place as the scapulo-coracoid, belonging to Dinornis maximus of Owen. Prof. T. J. Parker has proved that the Apterygidæ are undoubtedly descended from birds that could fly: the finding of so unmistakable a glenoid cavity in the present bone confirms the generalization for the Dinornithidæ.

VIII.—Notes as to Position of Moa Bones in New Zealand

[The following list of localities in New Zealand where the remains of the Dinornis have been discovered has been most obligingly drawn up for me by Mr. Charles Smith, an old resident in New Zealand, and I gladly publish it as a useful list for reference. —Edit. G. M.]