Discovery of a Strange Animal.

Feilding Star, Volume XX, Issue 62, 12 September 1898, Page 2

Discovery of a Strange Animal.

Telegraph. Press Association. "Copyright. Gisborne, September 9. A bush-feller on Lysnar's station Arowhana, fifty miles from Gisborne, was startled last week by a- strange animal, which he surprised in the bush, and which ran into a hole in an immense rata tree. The other bush-fellers, who were near, were called, and distinctly traced the track of the animal to the tree and up the trunk to its hole. On the ground were foot-prints larger than a man's hand, and circling round the tree was a track worn by the claws of the creature. Well informed natives say the description handed down to them by their forefathers of a reptile called kumikuiiio. They are not known to have been seen for at least three generations, but old 'Maoris, in this district, have stories that they existed nnd grew up to twelve feet long, living in large trees or boulders. The head of the kumikumi was bigger than a man's and like a bullock's. A party is going out to endeavour to secure the reported find.