A very interesting communication from Mr Williams accompanied one of the consignments, extracts of which I will quote. It bears date "Poverty Bay, New Zealand, 17th May 1842." "It is about three years ago, on paying a visit to this coast, south of the East Cape, that the natives told me of some extraordinary monster, which they said was in existence in an inaccessible cavern on the side of a hill near the river Wairoa; and they shewed me at the same time some fragments of bone taken out of the beds of rivers, which they said belonged to this creature, to which they gave the name of _Moa_. When I came to reside in this neighbourhood I heard the same story a little enlarged; for it was said that this creature _was still existing_ at the said hill, of which the name is Wakapunake, and that it is guarded by a reptile of the Lizard species, but I could not learn that any of the present generation had seen it. I still considered the whole as an idle fable, but offered a large reward to any who would catch me either the bird or its protector." These offers procured the collection of a considerable number of fossil bones, on which Mr Williams makes the following observations:-- "1. None of these bones have been found on the dry land, but are all of them from the banks and beds of fresh-water rivers, buried only a little distance in the mud.... All the streams are in immediate connexion with hills of some altitude. "2. This bird was in existence here at no very distant time, though not in the memory of any of the inhabitants: for the bones are found in the beds of the present streams, and do not appear to have been brought into their present situation by the action of any violent rush of waters. "3. They existed in considerable numbers,--(an observation which has since been abundantly confirmed.) "4. It may be inferred that this bird was long-lived, and that it was many years before it attained its full size. (The writer grounds this inference on the disparity in dimensions of the corresponding bones, supposing that they all belonged to one and the same species; which, however, was an erroneous assumption.) "5. The greatest height of the bird was probably not less than fourteen or sixteen feet. The leg-bones now sent give the height of six feet to the root of the tail.