MUTTON-BIRDS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 110, 11 May 1910, Page 4

MUTTON-BIRDS.

♦ . THEIR LIFE ON SOUTHERN ISLANDS. A QUAINT NEW ZEALAND INDUSTRY. (Specially Written for The Post.) (By James Drummond, "F.L.S., F.Z.S.) One bright day at the end of last month, when the sea was calm and the sky was dear, and a light breeze played with the dancing waves, I set out irom Half Moon Bay to visit the muttonbirders at one of their many island I homes near Stewart Island. Three hours' easy steam in a nineteen-ton schooner brought me to Tia, which does "sentrygo" at the entrance to Port Adventure, and I leaped from the gunwale of a dinghy on to a small sandy beach, strewn with bell-kelp and seaweed, and guarded at both ends by immense rocks and boulders. The sea foams around the little island, which is only about two miles long and half a mile broad, and when the swell surges, the surf is sent in showers of spray up the perpendicular sides of the cliffs. . There is vegetation everywhere, except on the rocky sides and protuberances, but most of the plants bear signs of great indecisive battles with strong winds. Olearia trees, which are the most plentiful plants on the island, have been bruised and bent by storms. In some cases their trunks are so crooked that they bend back to the ground again after growing upwards for a few feet. They face the sea and creep down towards it, as if drawn by a horrible fascination. Branches reaching out over the dizzy edge give an impression that they have been thrown out in a mute appeal for mercy from the relentless wind. There is little undergrowth where the olearias grow thickly, but in the interior there is a rich profusion of plant life. Supplejacks and other lianas hang lik> ropes from high branches. Ferns and tree ferns nestle in nooks made safe and cosy by larger and sturdier members of the plant community. It is in the open forest areas, where the olearias have the field to themselves, that the petrel known as the mutton-bird in the south likes most to make its nest. Two chains from the cliffs, all around the island, the soft, dark, damp, peaty soil is honeycombed with burrows made by the birds. It is difficult to walk for more than a few yards without stepping into one of these holes and sinking over the boot-tops. The island, small as it is, supplies a breeding-place for countless thousands of brown-plumaged petrels; and the brown-plumaged petrels supply the Maoris of the South with an interesting industry. AT WORK. At the time of my visit, three gange of mutton-birders were at work on Tia Island. They began in the first week of April, and they will remain there until about the second week in June, when the mutton-birds will depart and the season will end. They will then return to their homes at Stewart Island, the Bluff, or elsewhere, to enjoy the fruits of their labours. The season is far too short for them. Although the work is hard, and often unpleasant, many Maoris look upon it as the happiest and merriest time of the year. Men and women, boys and girls, old and young, rich and poor, the strong and the feeble, take part in it. The schooner which took me to Tia also took to another mutton-bird island a grey-headed old man of seventy. He was accompanied by his grandchild of seven. A member of the schooner'? crew told me that his old mother, who has been stone-blind for years, seldom -misses a. season. On Tia during my visit there were three whole families, from the oldest to the youngest. Some of them have caught mutton-birds' on the island year in and year out for more than thirty years. All of them assured me that a stay on Tia for three months in a year is the best picnic their hearts desire. Early to rise and late to bed is usually the rule with the mutton-birders. Sometimes they are out in the forests, amongst the burrows! all day and nearly all night, in bleak v. inds and drenching rain. Begrimed with peaty soil, bespattered with slinking oil ejected from the birds' mouths, bending under the weight of hundreds of dead birds slung on their backs, wet, tired, and weary, they walk the dark forest paths with songs on their lips and mirth in their hearts. It is one of the easiest things in the world to raise a hearty laugh on a mutton-bird island. The smallest witticism is appreciated. The greatest annoyance is tempered with a joke. Tho end of one Btage of the processes through which the birds pass before they are packed away is a recognised time for practical jokes. When the workers, utterly tired out with long hours, at last fall into a deep sleep, it is the custom for one, who can keep awake longer than the others, to go the round of the huts and paint the sleepers' faces with black greaso and oil. When the mutton-birders awake, each sees all the others' faces disfigured with grotesque markings, and the huts resound with roars of laughter, which are echoed all clay long. Harsh words seem to be banished from the vocabulary of a mutton-bird island. Unkind thoughts may be harboured, but they do not find expression, and envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness are unknown. LIFE IN THE HUTS. If a gang is composed of males, as is the case with the one I joined at the invitation of Mr. John Bragg, head man and pripcipal owner of Tia Island, all hands prepare the meals and attend to other duties at the hut, each doing something, and none scrimping the. work. The meals are cooked in the principal room, which as used as kitchen and dining-room, and also for general purposes. There is v. broad wooden chimney. The fireplace stretches from side to side of the hut. The hearth, which comes out nearly to the centre of the room, is mado of rocks and boulders gathered on the shore. A camp oven and a billy are slung by iron chains from the top of the chimney. Heavy logs of rata and other timber are used as tuel. Every Maori can cook, and in a very short time the table is laid for the meal. "Tea is ready, gentlemen," the chief cook announces, and as the members of the party sit around, they bend their heads while grace is said in Maori. The meal usually consists of mutton-bird fried in its own fat, and potatoes, with excellent home-made bread and scones, fresh butter, and jam or cheese. Jam-roll and jam-tarts are luxuries. Sometimes, but not often, mutton is available, and occasionally, when variety is craved for, members of the party go out in the boat and catch blue cod or trumpeter. There is an absolutely unanimous opinion on tne island that mutton-bird, fried, boiled, or roasted, is the best dish a mutton-birder can have. There is a good deal to be said in support of this opinion. The mutton-bird's flesh 5S tasty, delicate, and savoury. There is often half an inch or more of fat on the body, but when the birds are in good condition there is also plenty of flesh. Two mutton-birds help to make a good meal for a hungry man. After tea the table is cleared, seats arc drawn into the bpacious hearth, and the rest of the evening, if work is not waiting to be done, is passed with stories and with discussions on all subjects, from

the next day's "catch" to the ancient traditions of the Maori lace and the politics of the day. MAORIS AND THE OWL. . Traditions, legends, and sayings, apparently, aro still cherished by the Southern Maoris. They believe in many of the beliefs of their forefathers, and they like to preserve, in all their picluresqueness and simplicity, the stories which were passed from parents to children in the old days. An instance of this came under my notice when I was walking through the forest with two lads. We came to a large hollow rata tree, where a morepork owl blinked and stared at us. A remark that I should like to have a morepork for presentation to Canterbury Museum was received with some degree of horror. I was told that owls are ghosts, and that as soon as the morepork that was staring at us saw me load my gun, it would rush from its hole with extraordinary rapidity and strike me dead. "It is much to be feared," one of my companions said in serious tones. In case I was determined to shoot it, they begged mo to use both barrels and to fire them simultaneously. Later on, Mr. Bragg told me that most Maoris still regard the owl with awe. If it rests on a hut at night and utters a peculiar cry, distinct from the "morepork" hoot, the owner of the hut will not let it be killed. HOW THE MUTTON BIRD IS CAPTUEED. The island is divided into sections, marked off by tufts of fern tied to trees, or in some other method just as simple and effective. Each muttonbirder is given a section. All the birds in it are his property, and there he works. It is the young birds which are sought. As a matter of fact, when I was on the island there was not an, adult bird to be seen day or night. The holes' made by the birds do not go straight into the ground. They slope downwards slightly, and then turn until they form almost a semicircle about two feet six inches long. The mutloivhirder, lying full length on the ground, thrusts his arm and hand into the hole and' gTasps the bird inside. The bird, which is about four months old, usually resents this intrusion with great vigour. Its sharp bill is brought into use so effectively 'that the intruding hand is often badly scratched and is withdrawn bleeding in several places. To guard against this, the mutton-birders wear coarse mittens, which cover the whole of the hand and wrist. The bird, usually fighting with bill and wings, is dragged from its hole. The mutton-birder grasps ib by its feet and bangs its head against a treetrunk or stem. Death is instantaneous, A tight squeeze of the body, the fingers being thrust down towards the neck, sends a quantity of oily fluid, of a reddish or yellowish colour, out of tiie mouth, and the body w then cast aside to make one of a bundle of six or seven. The .bird is entirely black when ib is broughb forth to the light. It has not yet assumed the brownish colour which is found in the plumage of the adults. The back is usually covered with a fairly large quantity of down, which is lost when the time to fly has arrived. According to the observations of the Maoris, the parents feed the young regularly at first, going out at. tho first appearance of dawn, and seldom returning before dusk. The parent birds arrive in September to clean out the holes and see that they are in a satisfactory condition for nesting. They go away again, but return m October to prepare the nests. The preparation is nob an elaborate work. It consists of smoothing the earth on the bottom of the holes and of placing a few leaves, generally those of olearia trees, in each. The birds begin to lay in the middle of November, and the chicks are hatched a month The Maoris state that all the young mutton-birds have an auspicious birth on Christmas Day, but this is a statement which I have fiad no opportunity of confirming. It Is evident, in fact, that the laying is not absolutely regular, some of the young birds I saw being very much further forward than others. In the fourth month after hatching they are left for longer and longer terms without food, until a week or more goes by in which their parenta leave them to their own resources. The Maoris believe that this system of breeding is adopted by the parents in order to induce the young to go out and fight for themselves in the battle of life. They seem to be loth to leave their warm and comfortable holes, and if they had plenty of food supplied to them they would have no incentive to break away from home associations. Hunger drives them- forth, necessity teaches them that they must help themselves, and inherited instincts and faculties do the rest. When they are approaching the age at which they must go out into the world, they go to >the edge of the holes at night and shake the down from their bodies. Evidence of activities in this direction are often found in the morning, in the shape of down clinging to the openings of the holes. HAED WORK. By the first week in May all the down has disappeared from the birds' bodies and the plumage has taken the adult form, with all the feathers complete, ft is then that the muttonbirders' hardest work begins. The birds have to be caught at night with torches, as they rest close to their holes. The torching work is hard enough on bright moonlight nights, but it is aJmost as unpleasant as the imagination can make it on nights when the weather is boisterous. Tho fine nights, indeed, are not the best adapted for the work. It is on the cold, rainy, misty nights that most birds are caught ; and then the mutton-birders work all I through the night. It is necessary to pluck the birds as soon as the "catch" is brought into the huts. Torching is often continued until midnight, and in that case plucking continues until four or five o'clock in the morning. The order is up at six again, and another long day and a longer night are in front of the mutton-birders. There is an approved method of plucking, which calls for some skill and experience. A" quick worker can pluck seventy-five birds in two hours, but the average is about two minutes for eaah bird. After the birds have been plucked they are placed on the floor of the hut, which is covered with green fronds of the tree-ferns. The bodies are dipped into a cauldron of boiling salt water, and all the stray feathers and pieces of down left during plucking are rubbed off by the mutton-birders' bars hands. The bodies are then hung on lines out in the open. The heads, wings, and feet are cut off, and the bodies are prepared for consumption. After that they are salted and placed in a cask for a certain time, and then comes a unique and interesting method of packing. On the shores of the island the ocean throws up immense quantities of leathery kelp with long, broad leaves. The mutton-birders gather this, carry it up to their huts on their shoulders, and cut it into the shape of large bottles, between three and four feet long and about one foot wide at the bottom. The kelp has a covering on both sides. Inside it is honeycombed. By blowing into an opening at the top the sides arc made to swell out like a blown-up football, and a completely air-tight bag js formed. Sometimes a. hole is accidentally made in the bag while it is being blown up. It is ingeniously stopped by tying a limpet shell over the

hole inside. The salted bodies are thrust through the neck, the bag is packed with forty, fifty, sixty or seventy bodies, according to its size, and the neck is tied tightly. The bag is protected with strips of totara bark lashed around it, and the mutton-birds are then ready to be sent to market, to be consumed by those who like this dainty. Besides the salting method of preserving, the birds are sometimes boiled in their fat. This is the old Maori method. It is used mostly for home consumption still, but Europeans are beginning to feel that it is the better method of tho two, and orders for mutton-birds preserved in their own fat have come in fairly frequently lately. THE YEARLY CATCH. Members of both sexes take paTt in all the operations, and many of them become very expert. An experienced catcher, on a good section, will bring 100 or 120 bird* in one day. The average is 70 or 75. The rule is to do two days' catching and plucking and to give about three days to the other branches of the industry. It is estimated that 150,000 birds are caught every year on the mutton-bird islands of the south. The statement at once gives rise, to an impression that the muttonbird petrel will not stand this depletion very long, but there seems to be no reason whatever tc suppose that the' operations will lead to extinction. As a matter of fact, not half of the birds hatched on any of the islands are caught. Although each petrel lays only one egg in the season, the numbers of the birds are increasing. They are as countless as the sands on the shore. The mutton-birders' operations do not deter the birds from returning to the island. It is not man, but other natural enemies, that the birds fear. The presence of rats almost ruins the industry on the island upon which they appear. This year rats have been found on Tia Island for the first time, and disastrous results are feared. The baneful effect of their presence is shown by the iact that a small islet a few acres in area, north of the main island, was once a specially rich catching ground. The rats landed there first on their migration, and this year there is not a bird on that part of the ground. Five cats were my fellow-passengers in the schooner. They will be left on the island when the mutton-birders depart, and it is hoped that they will set to work on tho rats. Wekas have been liberated on the island, but although they have increased at a remarkable rate," they haA-e apparently done nothing to check the advance of the birds' natural enemies. The industry brings in a fairly good revenue to the Maoris. They look less to the money, however, than to the enjoyment the mutton-bird season, affords. They delight in their labours, and with their light hearts and their merry thoughts, are happy as long as the season lasts.