rare occasions these calabashes were filled with fat worms. The Maoris were, therefore, well up in the art of preserving animal food in enclosed vessels, the interstices being filled with melted tallow. It will be seen how rich is the mahogany red-brown colouring of these gourds, a result partly due to age and partly to the animal oil with which they were smeared inside and out. The Maoris now rarely grow these gourds, and the old people say that for some unknown reason they cannot grow them the same size as formerly. Mair has seen the gourds so large as to fill the two arms of any Native carrying them. My largest gourd is 46 in. in circumference, and its height from base to where the tuki is affixed is 13 in. From the fact that I have seen only five specimens, all told, of these tukis, that there are three or four in the Auckland Museum and none here, I think I am justified in saying they are so rare now that they deserve fuller description, and to be embalmed in the pages of these Transactions. These tukis, Mair tells me, were always made of the same wood, matai. Their degree of blackness depends partly upon their age and partly upon the amount of fat, and dirt, and smoke to which they have been submitted. Each tuki, being made of thick and hard wood, would outlast several generations of gourds, which were thin and brittle. The tuki was attached to the gourd by holes pierced at its lower end, through which flax was passed and then drawn through similar holes in the gourd. Each gourd near its narrow end was carefully pared down until it closely fitted the end of the tuki. The flax was then tightly tied, and the result was a very creditable piece of close-fitting workmanship. Outside, to cover the junction of the tuki and gourd, a broad strip of flax was very tightly tied. When the melted fat was poured in it filled all the crevices, and the huahua inside was preserved in an airtight chamber. The Maoris used to preserve birds also in calabashes slit up in a different manner, of which pictures may be seen in White's “History of the Maori” They were frequently covered with a fine carving, necessarily very shallow owing to the thinness of the gourd. They were called papa, or kumete. White, though depicting with great care several specimens of papa, or kumete, does not depict a single specimen of a taha with a carved tuki. Moreover, the carving on a papa was radically different from that of a tuki. The gourd of the larger taha is a rich mahogany redbrown, whilst the tuki is darker. The gourd is surrounded by flax knotted so as to form large diagonal four-sided figures surrounding the gourd and gathering together to be formed into a handle, thus making it easy to carry. It is quite likely