MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 April 1940, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

MAORI BIRDS—A DYING RACE. (Recorded by J.H.S. for the “Times-Age.”) Wo New Zealanders have a mysterious indifference to tlie obvious fate ol our most beautiful birds, many of them unique in all the world: one class al least entirely so —the wingless birds. It is well, therefore, that I should, without any scientific knowledge, attempt to recall my own boyhood observations of them, a dozen at least gone for ever—mainly through our indifference.

Huia (silent) extinct about 1895. Blue black, orange wattles, white tipped tail feathers, worn only a chief, male beak sharp and straight an inch long, female’s curved three inches. Being tapu (sacred) they were as tame as domestic poultry, silent as the name indicates. The mat? picked around the grub holes in dead wood, the lady inserted her slender bill and pulled out the choice morsel. Each pair devoted to its one mate for life.

known more generally as kererti, is the largest and most beautiful wood pigeon in the world. Quiet and almost docile, it was snared by the Maori or shot by the pakeha in thousands for food. At certain seasons for some unknown reason, its gizzard is filled with bitter kowhai leaves making the flesh quite unfit to cat. Its plumage is of lustrous rainbow hues; but within a few minutes after being shot this disappears, leaving but the bluish tint. The same transformation occurs within fifteen minutes after being captured alive. Its white breast was a target for Maori spears and pakeha shots in the early days of colonisation.