ALLIGATORS JNT NEW ZEALAND

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1379, 25 October 1886, Page 2

ALLIGATORS JN T NEW ZEALAND

Dealing with the question of the alligator scare in Auckland, the Wellington Press a--ya : —Captain Cruise, again, who was here in 1820, and went to great pairs to compile information about the country, gives us this passage about it, which has a very cm ions significance j ust now:—‘‘The natives have the greaest horror of a I’zsrd, in the shape of which animal they believe it is that this Atua (Piemen) is went to take possession of the dying and to devour thair entrails—a superstition which may n the unconnectedw!th the dread the alligator has sprtai among them by its actual ravages or the stories that have been propagated respecting it. They report that in the part of the countiy where it is found, it mokes great havoc among children, carrying them off and devouring them whenever they come in the way.” 1 heae particulars regarding alligators in New Zealand ware all reproduced as wellknown facts in The A T eic Zealanders, a bcok pnb’i-hed in 1833 by the Society fo ■ the Difiueion of Useful Knowledge, which was then conside r ed the standard work on this country. That was fiftythree years ago, and it hss long ceased to be an article of common belief amongst Europeans that. New Zealand is infested by alligators. But the natives have never ceased to believe that certain creeks, rivers, lakes and gulfs are hautped by the dreaded Taniirha, which is only the alligator of me old navigators under another name It Is ui'qu'snotiably the same “ lizard eight feet long and as thick as a man’s body,” which was desc-lbed to O'- ok more ih*n a cerimry ago, and to Nicholas and Cruise more thru aix'y years ago. If the accounts given of it by •he natives then w-re true—and they Were never so p ct- d to be otherwise — it is posse-Me that there is some »rut iin the Taniirha stories thev tell now ; and the aligner which terrified the settlers’ children in Watlcaio the week before last may 1 o a lineal d» sccudmit of those which me.cle sue ’ havoc among the Maori p can--oinoio- i i 1820. In such matters ns this there :n i; tie to choose between credulity and incredulity. For our part, we are most anxious to believe ; but we should like to see the alligator.