ctions of the country, principally in caves. What is left of
the Moa to-day is quite sufficient to form the greatest ornithological
wonder in the world. The head of this reconstructed skeleton in the
museum of Christchurch stands sixteen feet from the ground, and its
various proportions are all of a character to harmonize with its
remarkable height. This skeleton shows the marvellous bird to have been,
when standing upright, five feet taller than the average full-grown
giraffe. It belonged to the giants who dwelt upon the earth perhaps
twenty thousand years ago, in the period of the mammoth and the dodo.

A couple of hundred miles further north will bring us to Wellington, the
national capital. After a narrow entrance is passed, the harbor opens
into a magnificent sheet of water, in which the largest ships may ride
in safety and discharge their cargoes at wharves built close to the busy
centre of the town. Here, as in Dunedin, a portion of land has been
reclaimed from the sea for business purposes. The city has its asylums,
a college, hospital, botanical garden, Roman Catholic cathedral, and a
colonial museum,--the latter being of more than ordinary interest in the
excellence and completeness of its several departments. A structure
which is exhibited here and called the Maori House, built by the natives
as a specimen of their domestic architecture, is particularly
interesting, being also full of aboriginal curiosities, such as domestic
utensils, weapons, and carvings. The house is of ordinary village size,
and is ornamented on many of its posts by carved figures, representing
native heroes and gods. The province of Wellington stretches northward a
hundred and fifty miles and contains seven million acres of land,
diversified by two mountain ranges. The population of the capital is a
little over twenty thousand. The town impresses one as being a community
of shops, and it is a subject of surprise how they can all obtain a
living.

A considerable number of natives, mostly in European costume, are seen
in the streets of Wellington, loitering about the corners and gazing
curiously into shop windows, the girls and women having heavy shocks of
unkempt hair shading their great black eyes, high cheek-bones, and
disfigured mouths and chins, which last are tattooed in blue dye of some
sort. The males tattoo the whole face elaborately, but the women
disfigure themselves thus only about the mouth and chin. It is most
amusing to see