Grey further states that the most favourable times for collecting these poems, and those at which most of them were in the first instance obtained, were at the great meetings of the people or public affairs, when their chiefs and most eloquent orators addressed them. On these occasions, the most effective speeches were invariably those principally made up from recitations of portions of ancient poems. In this case, the art of the orator was shown by his selecting a quotation from an ancient poem which, figuratively but dimly shadowed forth his intentions and opinions. As he spoke, the people were pleased at the beauty of the poetry and at his knowledge of their ancient poets, whilst their ingenuity was excited to detect from his figurative language what were his intentions and designs. Quotation after quotation, as they were rapidly and forcibly chanted forth, made his meaning clearer and clearer; curiosity and attention were by degrees riveted upon the speaker, and if his sentiments were in unison with those of the great mass of the assembly, and he was a man of influence, as each succeeding quotation gradually removed the doubts which hung upon the minds of the attentive group who were seated on the ground around him, murmur of applause rose after murmur of applause, until at last at some closing quotation which left no doubt as to his real meaning, the whole assembly gave way to tumults of delight and applauded equally the determination with which he had formed his poetic knowledge, and his oratorical art, by which, under images beautiful to them, he had for so long a time veiled, and at last so perfectly manifested his intentions. For more than seven years, Grey tells us, he devoted a great part of his available time to collecting these poems and in arranging them in their proper metre. The information was generally furnished by the former priests, and probably to no other person than Grey would many of them have been imparted while, even during his own time, most of the old chiefs who had aided him in his researches had already passed away. The volume, Ko Nga Moteatea Me Nga Hakirara o Nga Maori—The Laments and Songs of the Maori—published in 1853, contained five hundred and thirty three numbers. It has never been republished and is now comparatively rare. I may add that it has never been completely translated. After the war in Waikato, when Rangiriri fell to the British, and Rewi Maniapoto was defeated at Orakau, a number of Maori prisoners of war were confined in H.M.S. ‘Curacao’ in Auckland Harbour. One of the guards in charge of the prisoners was a Sergeant McGregor. He suggested that these unfortunates might occupy their time in writing such Maori songs as they knew, and the result was a collection of over four hundred songs published by McGregor in 1893. In White's Ancient History of the Maori are 110 songs, while Davis published 54 in Maori Mementoes. Others are to be found in various publication: Taylor's Te Ika A Maui, Dr. Shortland's Traditions and Superstitions, Te Waka Maori, the Journal of the Polynesian Society, The Transactions of the N.Z. Institute, the Dominion Museum Bulletins, and in the writings of the late Percy Smith and Elsdon Best. In the earlier publications, the writers have not taken the trouble or have been unable to obtain and to offer any information in regard to obscure words and phrases, or to give any explanation of the frequent allusions, and many of these are now entirely lost. In this connection, Grey quotes from some unpublished remarks by the Rev. Dr. Maunsell, one of the most learned Maori scholars of the time:— ‘In observing the construction of Maori poetry, we shall see that it was not only abrupt and elliptical to an excess not allowed in English poetry, but that it also carries its license so far as to disregard rules of grammar that are strictly observed in prose, alters words so as to make them sound more poetically, deals most arbitrarily with the length of syllables, and sometimes even inverts their order or adds other syllables. But it must be remembered that by far the largest measure of the difficulty arises from the peculiar local circumstances, and from the remote and vague allusions so wrought into the piece that even one tribe will often be unable to understand the song of another, especially if it be one of antiquity. ‘Thus it happens that the same song is to be found in each of the different books, though the different versions show a great deal of variation. The bulk of the songs have passed over the lips of men right through both islands, and thus confusion has arisen in certain words or names; words have been dropped while others have crept in. In the writing down of the songs by the pakeha or the ignorant Maori, the same thing has happened, so that it is now very difficult to get the correct version’. This, then, was the task Sir Apirana Ngata set himself—to seek out the tribes with whom the song originated, to ascertain the words as sung by them so that they might supply any necessary correction, and to provide explanatory notes. The results of his labours have been published in two volumes by the Board of Maori Ethnological Research, while a further 250 songs are contained in the MSS of the third volume now in progress. I know of no research into the language of the Maori equal to this. Sir Apirana took every opportunity to secure as many as possible of the obscure words, phrases and allusions, while those Maoris who do