original Ruapuke sheep. By the 1880's most families had moved to Stewart Island, where there were better anchorages for the growing industry of fishing. There Gretchen Wohlers, married to an Orkneyman, helped him carry on her father's eductional and missionary work. The old man himself died at the age of seventy-three, worn out by his years of unrelenting work. ‘The heartfelt sorrow of the Maoris,’ wrote an observer, ‘is very touching.’ ‘No world-shaking misionary life this,’ said the North German Mission Society, editing Wohlers' memoirs. Perhaps not; but he had been an important and comforting figure in those forgotten communities of Foveaux Strait, and he must emerge as one of the most likeable, if least obtrusive, of our early missionaries.

KO NGA KORERO TAWHITO A NGA TOHUNGA MAORI O MURIHIKU: HE MEA KOHIKOHI NA REV. J. F. H. WOHLERS With permission from the Royal Society of New Zealand, the following tales are reprinted from Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, Vol. VII, 1874. The tales were read before the Otago Institute on 7 April and 10 August of that year. This paper is a copy of the Maori Mythology in the same words as dictated to me by some old Maori wise men; out of which text I translated the paper into English, which has been read before the Otago Institute. In that paper I left out several names and passages in which I could not find a meaning, but they are all here in the Maori text. The language is in the Murihiku dialect, but in the pronunciation I have mostly kept to the general Maori orthography, because that is better for the understanding of the meaning of the words. I must also mention here that about the time I was collecting the tales I sent a few specimens of the same to Sir George Grey, and that part of them have been printed in his book in the Maori language. I only mention this, because some, when they see a few passages in that book and in this paper exactly alike, might thing I had copied them. It will be also observed that in Sir George Grey's book those few passages which are alike are in the Murihiku district. All that is here has been collected by myself here in the south. The old Maori tales, as originally collected by me—written down word by word out of the mouths of several old Maori—are bulky, incoherent and rambling, and few readers would have the patience to wade through them. I undertook the labour of collecting and studying them chiefly for the purpose to learn the Maori language and way of thinking. In the following Maori text I have tried to order the narration, and have left out tiresome and useless repetitions, but have retained the essential passages and expressions of the untutored old Maori, as spoken in this dialect, even if the grammar does not seem what it ought to be. This is, I presume, what the Society wishes, namely, a Maori text by the old Maori, and not a modernised Pakeha-Maori text. Those tales could no more be collected now—at least not here in the south; for the old Maori are dead, and the younger ones have not learnt them, because the new ideas introduced by Christianity and European settlements have superseded the old Maori ideas. The tales can only have historical worth when the mythologies and traditions of other nations from widely different parts, can be compared with them, as thereby the migration, and the archaic place where the Polynesian race may have had its growth and development, might be traced. They may also be worth reading as curiosities. As indicated by Wohlers in his notes, the English text should not be regarded as a translation, but merely as a paraphrase of the Maori text. Many parts of the Maori text were not translated by Wohlers, but in spite of this, it is interesting to note how these tales vary from North Island versions.