duced in colour by the Rev. Herbert Williams in Part II. of Hamilton's “Maori Art.” The kokowai met the eye of the Maori at every part of his surroundings during his lifetime, and did not leave him even in death, as it was the custom, after the bones of a chief had been scraped clean at the hahunga, or ceremonial feast held for the purpose, to give them a coating of his favourite colour before they were deposited in their final resting-place. As prepared by the Maoris in the old time the kokowai formed a paint of extraordinary permanence and durability. A piece of carving in the possession of Mr. W. H. Skinner was exposed to the weather for at least sixty years, but on all sound portions of the wood the colour is still quite strong and fresh. A still better example, if possible, may be seen on my grinding-slab. This, together with the rubber, was found in the vicinity of an old pa near Waimate, which has not been occupied within the last two centuries. The two stones lay together at the edge of a bush in a spot which must have been overrun by innumerable fires, the heat of which was sufficient to scale the hard basalt of the rubber; but in spite of this exhaustive test the kokowai is still there. Neither sun, rain, fires, nor the lapse of time has been able to obliterate it. Though it may have been well on æsthetic grounds, as a general rule, to restore the Maori carvings in our museums to something like their original appearance with a fresh coat of paint, I think it would be interesting to leave a few good specimens untouched, as, apart from the fact that these weather-worn objects have a beauty of their own which it is a pity to destroy, it would be an advantage to have an opportunity of seeing how this wonderful mixture is capable of enduring the most trying conditions. On the origin of the name kokowai Mr. S. Percy Smith, F.R.G.S., in a note on the subject kindly sent to me, thinks that the word is probably derived from the colour. Koko, he says, is evidently connected with colour, kokouri and kokotea meaning respectively dark- and light-coloured. Koko is also connected with a strong or unpleasant smell. On the term horu, a common name for a variety of the kokowai (see above), Mr. Percy Smith quotes from “L'Anthropologie” for August, 1891, as follows: “There is no doubt that in certain Egyptian myths there is connection between Horus, the sun god, and Iron,” and asks, “Is not the Maori name horu, the name for an oxide of iron, derived from the same source?”