New Zealand not many generations ago, and their tribal lore contained many accounts of encounters with this enormous ostrich. There were legends of daring moa hunters, and some of the natives asserted that a few of the great birds still existed in lonely and almost inaccessible parts of the New Zealand Mountains. Thus everything pointed to the fact that the bird was not confined to some former geological era, but had existed until a comparatively late period. This theory received further confirmation from the fact that the Maoris themselves had been in New Zealand only a few centuries.     According to their undoubted legends these Maoris were originally natives of Samoa. Their ancestors, cruising around in canoes, had been blown many hundred miles away to New Zealand in the thirteenth or fourteenth century of the Christian era. The island being uninhabited before they arrived, the great bird could have flourished there unmolested for ages. The Maoris slaughtered the birds in great numbers. The moa was not dangerous unless wounded or infuriated by the hunters, being similar in temper, as in form, to the ostrich. The moa captivated Professor Owen’s imagination. He pictured it the lord of the great Polynesian Islands of New Zealand, and ruling all its animals, until the human animal, with his superior intelligence, came. According to Prof. Owen’s theories, deduced from his studies of the skeletons, the moa was heavier and bulkier in proportion to its height than the ostrich, but less swift of foot. The shape of its skull indicated an affinity to the dodo, with a lower cerebral

development, and consequently with greater stupidity. Thus this heavy, stupid bird became comparatively easy prey to the Maori hunters, who are the boldest and most vigorous type of the modern barbarian [ Our apologies for the author’s casual racism. ], a few hundred of them holding 10,000 perfectly armed, equipped and well-officered British troops at bay for more than two years.     Some such discovery as this German scientist is reported to have made is not unexpected. Scientists have been inclined to believe the Maori stories, and of them have held that the living bird would be discovered yet in the wild interior of New Zealand.     So far as can be ascertained, there were two distinct species of these birds. One habitat the North Island of New Zealand and the other was a native of the South or Middle Island. The South Island bird was the largest and stood sixteen feet in height. Prof. Owen, on account of its size, called it the elephantopus. It was extraordinary for the massive strength of its limbs, breadth and bulk as well as height.     This story of the moa finds its parallel in the North American continent. Many persons have seen the skeleton of the mammoth in the museums of natural history. It is generally believed that the huge beast became extinct thousands of years ago.     Far up in Alaska, almost to the coast of the Arctic Ocean, the Indians say that a herd of the mammoths still exist. The story is repeated with such persistency and with such an air of sincerity that some people believe that it is not a mere