MOA BONES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1552, 23 September 1912, Page 4

MOA BONES.

AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY. (By Tclesraph.—Special Correspondent. l Auckland, September 2(1. An interesting and probably valuable discovery of inoa bones has lieen made by Mr. T. L. Smith, of Clcvedon,.while putting in- , a drain in a swampy piece of ground on his farm, and he has very wisely entrusted the excavation of tho' collection and the care oi it to the.most enthusiastic collector of the district (Mr. H. S. Munro), and scientists may rest satisfied that every bono possible will be got out. The hones were struck.in the middle of a quagmire i through which the drain passed, and Mr. Smith, on pulling out a shank bone, thought it to be. a human, bono, but on putting it alongside his' leg he found it reached to Iho nip, ,«o concluded, that it whs rather 100 much of a giant size for a. man. The bonce .ire üboiii three feet below tho surface, and have apparently boen dumped into tho quagmire and loaded with timber to fink, (hem, as heavy pieces of timber arc intermixed with the .bonce. Up to the. present bones of moro than thirty Birds hnvß .been found,'the shank bonns being in the best stale of preservation, and as yet only one sido of the drain has bcMi excavated. Mr. Munvo's deduction 'on studying, the matter while excavating is that t'he birds on being slaughtered nnd quartered were stripped of Iho meat and the raw bones dumped in (he'quagmire and loaded with pieces of timber for sanilur.v purposes, us too ninny small bones arc found (lint would scnicelv be there if the birds had bpiai cooked. The bones and timber are intermixed in such a manner as points to the supposition that they have been placed (hero indiscriminately at various time*. Portions of buck, breast, skull,, Ihmi!;, and foes are found niuonpit theni, proving conclusively that they am lxnie* of the mon. Their of preservation is probably owing to tho fact that (hoy have boon continuously under water. Of course, a area I number of tho smaller aud softer lmnes have decayed, nml it is not likely Ihiil many coinplple skeletons will be got from them, but Ihi' large number of birds that lias \v<«n ".linehlcrcd should innke it n fairly Ynlunblo scrap-heap fop assisting in completion of other skeletons (hat now havo various bones mining. |