They have now brought forward a Bill compelling those who speak on rabbits to express time intervals as geological periods.
After our experiences at Dunedin, Mac and I were cautious when we asked questions about the rabbit plague.
Dunedin is a fine city, and is in every way creditable to its founders. It is certainly hilly, but these difficulties are overcome with tramcars moved by an underground wire rope similar to that which has been for so many years successfully used in San Francisco. The banks and churches are of course noticeable, and so are the shops.
At the meeting of four streets in the centre of the town, there is a miniature of Sir Walter Scott’s monument in Edinburgh. This is to the memory of a Mr. Cargill, an energetic gentleman and pioneer in the earlier days of Dunedin.
On the night of our arrival we were entertained with a torchlight procession, and the howlings of the Salvation Army.
At the Museum Mac and I had our first interview with the remains of the moa. We saw some of their feathers, and a mummified larynx of one of these animals. I am not sure whether the moa could sing, but anyhow he had a larynx. What was more, he had a gizzard. In one corner of a glass case there were about a coal-scuttleful of white pebbles, which had been removed from the gizzard of a moa. The moa had therefore a taste for mineralogy.
‘We shall get some valuable facts about this animal before we have done,’ remarked Mac.
Then, turning to the director of the Museum, who kindly accompanied us round the show, he blandly inquired whether the moa ever attacked travellers.
‘It is an extinct bird, sir,’ said the director, looking very much disgusted at Mac.
‘Oh, it’s extinct, is it?’ was the reply.