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Show 54 PROF. OWEN ON THE EXTINCTION OF DINORNIS. [Jail. 27, their cooking-places and kitchen-middens, covering more than forty acres, near the mouth of the River Kakaia, where I have made extensive excavations. The results, which I shall publish as soon as some other work which I have in hand will allow me, will be considered not uninteresting, as they give us not only an insight into the habits of a primitive people who hunted (and, I may say, exterminated) the Dinornis, but have also brought to light their rough stone implements. These are either pieces of hard sandstone broken off from large boulders in a peculiar manner, or made of flint or, rather, hard siliceous rocks, chipped very roughly, and generally the exact counterpart of those found at Amiens. Some of them are, however, chipped only on one side, the other side being perfectly flat. I have drawings made for publication of some of the most characteristic ones. The cooking-places or ovens are built like those of the Maories, and are now covered by from 6 to 8 inches of silt and vegetable soil. " But what is still more striking is the state in which the Moa bones are found. I collected from some of the kitchen-middens all the bones, and brought them to Christchurch to sort them; and the result was a very interesting one; in every respect it coincided with that obtained by the excavations at Glenmark. If you will look at the list in the 'Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute' (vol. i. p. 89), you will observe that by far the greater number of bones belonged to D. casuarinus (45), the next to D. didiformis (37), and then to D. crassus (14). The same proportional occurrence is also found in the case of the kitchen-middens-D. casuarinus predominating, and D. didiformis and D. crassus following in numbers. There are also some bones of D. elephantopus (13) and of a small Palapteryx ingens (belonging to several specimens), but none of D. giganteus and D. robustus. " The leg-bones are all broken, the tibiae on both sides near the end, so as to get out the marrow or the contents of the hollow of the bone. At the same time both ends are generally scooped out, so as to suggest at once that the Moa-hunters used a flint flake as a spoon to get the animal eatable matter out of those parts of the bone which were more difficult to break. The middle portion of the tibiae is nearly always broken into small fragments; and I found near the kitchen-middens several large flat stones and also others of an oblong form, which had doubtless been used for the purpose of smashing them. Femora and metatarsi of specimens belonging to D. casuarinus and D. didiformis are partly broken in the centre, partly on both sides; but those of D. crassus and D. elephantopus, owing to their pachydermal form and the narrow hollow inside, are generally only broken in the centre, and in many cases are still intact, as not offering sufficient inducement for taking the trouble. The skulls are invariably scooped out from below to get at the brain. The pelvic and sternal bones are always in fragments. " There were also bones of the native Dog, of Seals, Sea-gulls, and the tympanic bones of several species of Whales amongst them, |