OUR NEW ZEALAND BIRDS.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 8, 1 May 1900, Page 631

OUR NEW ZEALAND BIRDS.

By J. Cowan. Photographs hy A. L. Cleave, taken hy kind permission of Mr. T. F. Cheese man, Curator, from specimens in the Auckland Museum.

?f<€ isiiSll^iv destitute °f land-animals, a alllfJwxiif I ie n '^ s °f ew Zealand * 11111^1111 P were a most impoi'tant I KSWmlji^ 1 source of food supply. As we have seen, such birds €f»!%||jgsSs)!j3 as the pigeon, tui and **Jy halm were and are favorite delicacies amongst the native people, but this list by no means exhausts the "game" portion of the Maori's menu. The wild duck, the snipe and the mutton-bird, are amongst the principal food-birds of our coasts and rivers, and the great swamps and lagoons of the interior of this Island are frequented in very large numbers by the first mentioned, the parera of the Maoris. Of our sea birds the one of greatest economic value, at any rate to the natives, is the mutton-bird, of which there are seveml kinds. Two are known as the titi and oil, The mutton-bird frequents many of the rocky islets on the East Coast of the North Island, and it is found in immense flights on the small islands near Stewart Island, in the far South. Those who want to see teeming bird-life should visit some of the small islands on our coasts, such as the Hen and Chickens, off Whangarei Heads. The feathered fishers are there by tens of thousands — seagulls, divers, puffins, petrels, mutton-birds, penguins — dotting the waters all around, pursning shoals of fish with shrill screams, or fighting with each other and vociferating clamorously over some ocean delicacy, The mutton-birds are interesting denizens of these . islands, and of Karewa, Mayor Island, and. many other similar spots. Their

Vol. I.— No. B.—4T.

PART 11.

breeding places are burrows in the sides of the hills, and these residences thoy share with the tuatara lizard, which is a sort of permanent boarder in Titi Villa. The Northern natives term the grey- faced potrel the oil, while another petrel is known as tho titi, and another as the toanui. These- are all mutton-birds, and are taken by tho Maoris for food. Tho general name for tho muttonbird throughout the colony, however, is titi. Ifc is the practice of the natives to resort to certain islands on the New Zealand coast, especially to the small islands in the vicinity of Foveaux Straits, every year at tho muttonbirding season, when thousands of these birds are killed, cooked, and packed in air-tight layers of their own fat for future consumption. Birds so preserved are termed titi huahua, and they are packed in singular-looking baskets of split kelp, in totara bark cases, or in the more prosaic kerosene tin. Many hundreds of these birds are annually distributed by the Southern natives to the tribes in the North, and preserved mutton-birds oven come from tho far-away Chatham Islands as presents for the prophet Te Whiti, at Parihaka.

The titi has a flavour all its own ; it is at any rate not at all bird-like. Mr. Boscawen, in a report on the Little Barrier Island, furnished to the Crown Lands and Purvey Department some years ago, said of the preserved mutton-bird that " it tastes something like the smell of a blown out oil lamp." Well, all the titi are not quite as bad as that. The writer has had titi huahua at sundry Maori feasts, and can certify that it is not half bad, providing always that one is

very hungry, and is not particularly fastidious. The taste of the titi is the sort of thing that grows upon one. Babes or sucklings would not thrive upon it, neither is it good for invalids, and it would prove too much for the tender internal apparatus of members of the Peace Society. It is fat and fishy in flavour, and accordingly is a real tit-hit at a native hakari. It is interesting to notice the gusto with which the Maori scoops out of the big kelp baskets the handfuls of oily and luscious titi, and how he smacks his lips over the toothsome mouthfuls. "JE-e/ lie mea tinoreka!" (" Ah ! Was there ever anything so sweet !")

The common wild duck (parera) is widely distributed over the colony, and affords good sport for the man with the gun during the shooting season. Wild duck shooting is a favourite sport with those who can spare the time in April and May, and the hikes and swamps of the Lower Waikato and Ihe great Piako Swamp provide, perhaps, the best pastime of this sort in the colony. The ivhio, or blue mountain duck, is plentiful around the mountain streams of the interior. The lohio (whistle) takes its name from its cry. The ptitangitangi (paradise duck)

has its habitat in the South Island. The parem is as much an object of pursuit amongst natives as Europeans, and one primitive method of capturing it observed by the Maoris is to place a row of flax snares just above the surface of a rivulet or swamp channel along which the ducks have been observed, to swim, or to tie the thick tough

swamp-rushes close to the water in a soi*fc of running noose, on the off-chance of a silly dnclc putting its head through it. At Lake Rotoehu, not far from Rotorua, the natives

of the Ngatipikiao tribe are accustomed t hunt the (.lacks with dogs in the mualtin season, when they are fat and cannot easil escape. The dogs are sent after the duel

amongst the sedge which borders theshallower part of the Lake shores, and bring their catches to their masters. The natives also dive for the ducks. A man notes the place where the unsuspicious parent are swimming; or resting on the surface of the lake close to the beds of rushes, and after approaching cautiously as near as possible, dives underneath, pulls a duck down, kills it and attaches it to his flax belt. This method of wild duck hunting was a common practice amongst the olden Maoris, but it is falling into desuetude.

A duck hunter's paradise is to be found in the Piako Swamp, that great stretch of marsh, lagoon and creek which extends over many thousands of acres, from near Morrinsville, on the Auckland— r Te Aroha Railway, to the shores of the Hauraki Gulf. Here a party of sportsmen in ai'oomy shallow-draught boat can spend weeks of exploration and shooting if so inclined, and bag ducks to the top of their desire. In the dusk of the evening is the time to pot the wily parera, when the big flights take their homeward way over the measureless morass.

A bird of our coasts, whose migratory habits have given rise to much discussion, is ihelcuaka or godwifc. Some years ago, in a magazine article entitled " The Plight of the Kuaka," a writer described the setting out of thousands of these birds from the Northern point of New Zealand on their annual migration, and set up the theory that, as the same

bird, or one similar to it, has been observed in Siberia at a certain season of the year, the kuaka flies right across the tropics thousands of miles, and visits Siberia every year. This hypothesis, although it has obtained credence from many, seems very improbable. The kuaka certainly does take its departure from the North Cape and that vicinity in great flocks every year, about April, but it is very questionable whether it travels as far North as the equator. If the kuaka seek a colder climate for its physical recuperation every year, why does it not fly Southwards, instead of going across the Hue all the weary way to the Arctic Circle ? The flight of the kuaka is a problem which our naturalists have not yet satisfactorily solved. This bird is a favourite article of food amongst the Maoris, and Europeans find it acceptable. In former times the natives were accustomed to set snares on sand banks near the sea for kuaka and snipe, and also used to kill the kuaka with sticks as they flew over the sand-hills in the North duriug dusk.

The lordly albatross (toroa) is to bo seen and caught on the coasts of Now Zealand, and the feathers are much prized by the natives for the purposes of decoration. Tho Maoris, uulike tho comrades of Coloridgo's "Ancient Mariner," have no superstitious scruples about killing the albatross, at loast I have not heard of any. " Tho " Ancient Mariner" with his cross-bow shot tho albatross that every day came to tho seamen's hollo : " Ah, wretch ! said they, the bird to Blay That made the breozo to blow ! " But the Maori is glad to get hold of tho albatross, for the pure whito feathors under the wiug and tho snowy down are, or rather were, articles of adornment. Formerly tufts of albatross down were worn in tho lobe of the ear, aud a native chief decked up in full costume on state occasions must have looked very lino in the olden times, with his hair tied up in a top-knot and decorated with kotuku or huia feathers, tho soft, lleecy toroa down in his ears, and his figure arrayed in the choicest flax and feather cloaks.

Bunches of albatross feathers wcro also used as decorations for tho puhi or slender curving wands which project from the carved bows of war canoes. In the large meeting house of the Urewera Maoris at Ituatahuna, the foot of tho principal massive house-pillar, or /Hjutoko/nanawa, is

beautifully carved and tattooed to repi'esent Toroa, the celebrated captain of the Mataatua canoe, which arrived on these shores six hundred years ago. From the ears of the wooden figure are suspended handsome tufts of albatross down — fitting adornment for the illustrious sailor-chief named after the swiftwinged king of the ocean.

Another bird whose feathers are highlyvalued, but which, strictly speaking, does not belong to the category of New Zealand birds, is the ainokura, the tropic-bird or bo's'n-bird, as it is popularly called. It is

found all over the Pacific, aud the South Sea Islanders, as well as the Maoris, set much stove upon its peculiar long narrow tail feathers as ornaments. In Nine (Savage Island) the feathers of the bo Vn -bird (there called tuaki) are used as ornaments for the hair on gala occasions, and the amokura feathers are used in exactly the same fashion by the Maoris, who are fond of decorating their hats with one or two of these straight, very narrow, red feathers. They say it is a tohu rangatim, a sigu of chieftainship, like the wearing of huia or JeoiuJeu feathers. At a recent Maori gathering of the clans at Rotorun, many of the natives wore the

highly-prized amok lira feathers (which came from the distant Niue), while many of those who could not obtain them displayed in their hats a peculiar imitation of the feather in the form of dried and plaited leaves of maurea, a slender grass which is found near Lake Taupo, and which dries red. The h via (Gould's Keterelocha Acutirostris) is one of the most beautiful of our. native birds, and its white tipped tail feathers are greatly valued by the Maoris, amongst whom the weaving of a huia feather in the hair or hat is, as has just been stated, looked upon as a token of chieftainship or good birth. The huiai's plumage is of a glossy black, with several large curving tail feathers tipped with white. This handsome bird is yearly becoming scarcer, and it is now only to be found on the Ruahine Mountains and Tararua Ranges, in the North of the Wellington Provincial District. One of the most familiar of our birds, as far as illustrations go, is the rapidly decreasing kiwi (Apteryx), whose singular appearance is well known to colonists and to many outside New Zealand. The habitat of the kiwi is the more remote of the wooded ranges in the interior of the North Island, and also in the vicinity of the West Coast Sounds. I have heard a suggestion made by one who takes a deep interest in our native birds that a number of kiwi should be transported to the Little Barrier Island, at the entrance to the Hauraki Gulf, and liberated in that avifauna reserve, where there is every chance of them thriving and increasing. Our onescientificbody,theNew Zealand Institute, should attend to this before it is too late, and before the few remaining wingless birds vanish from the North Island. This suggestion also applies to the huia, which is not as yet represented in the natural history " farm " of the Little Barrier. The rarest bird in New Zealand — if there be one still alive — is the singular creature known as the takahe (JSfotornis Mantetti). The last known specimen of this bird, a young female, was captui'ed in September, 1898, by Mr. Ross, at Lake Te Anau, and as there were eggs in it, it is considered that it

was not the sole survivoi* of its race. There are two specimens of the takalie in the British Museum, one captured alive in 1849 by a party of sealers at Resolution Island, West Coast, the other caught by Maoris on Secretary Island. A third specimen, captured near Lake Te Anau, in 1881, is now in the Dresden Museum. The fourth specimen, the only known one in New Zealand, was caught by a dog, and brought out from the bush on the shores of Te Anau, and is now in the Dunedin Museum. It was purchased for £100 by the Hon. John Mackenzie, Minister of Lands, for the New Zealand Government. The takahe, like the kiwi and kakapo, lives in holes in the roots of trees, and there may be some of them still inhabiting the deep forests which clothe the only half-explored mountains in the south-west corner of the South Island.

The tajcahe, judging from the photo, of the Dunedin specimen, reproduced in last year's Report of. the Department of Lands and Survey, is a large bird, not unlike a turkey in appearance, but with a thicker neck, and short, strong, arched beak. The captured takahe was about twenty inches in height and the length from tip to tail, straight, eighteen inches. The wings are short, useless for purposes of flight, but armed beyond the carpal joint with a sharp spur or claw. The head and upper part of the neck are dark blue in colour, the back olive-green, and the fore-neck, breast and sides purplish-blue, According to Sir Walter Bullev the notornis, " like so many other New Zealand forms of an earlier period, is the prototype of a well known genus of swamp hens. It is in fact, to all appearances, a huge pukeko (Porphyrio) with feeble or aborted wings and abbreviated toes, the feet resembling thoso of tribqnyx — a bird incapable of flying, but admirably adapted for running."

The rare tieke or saddle -back (Greadion carunculatus, Family Sturnidae) is an interesting bird, because of its beauty, its scarcity and its association with Maori legends. It is a handsome little black bird, with a redcoloured band across the back and wings, whence the name saddle-back. The tieke

was, according to the Rev. R. Taylor, n bird of omen amongst the Maoris. If one tlow up on the right side of the track it was a good sign ; if on the left a bad one. At present it. is to be found on the Cape Colville Peninsula, D'Urville Island and other localities in the Cook Strait Sounds, and also probably on Ouvier Island.

Another very scarce specimen of bird-life ia the kotlhc (hihi), or stiioh-bird ( Poytnioniiti cincta), one of the honey-eaters, which is a beautiful little bird. It has a blade hosid and wings, with a tuft of white foathers on cither side of the head, and a yellow circle round the

lower part of the neck find wings. Tlio male is larger and more gfiily feathered than tin; hen bird. There are a number of those birds on the Little Barrier Island, and it is hoped that they will increase. Great havoc was made amongst the stitch-birds some years ago, before the Little Barrier was taken over by the Government, in the interests of European collectors, and the saddlo-baek luis also suffered grievously in order that greedy foreign museums might be supplied with specimens. But our rarer forms of bird-life are, at the eleventh hour, taken under the sheltering wing of the Government of New Zealand, and will have a chance to live and multiply in a few isolated spots along our coasts.