Not So Very Rare.

Forest and Bird, Issue 49, 1 August 1938, Page 4

Not So Very Rare.

About fifteen years ago a Taranaki sawmiller of my acquaintance, a Stratford man, caught a pure-white kiwi in a bush he was working, many miles inland towards the head waters of the Waitara River. He brought it into his home in Stratford and kept it in a box. It was fed with worms; it kept the family hard at work digging to supply its daily wants. Presently, the Zoo authorities in Wellington heard about it, and a 'request was sent for it, for the Newtown Park collection. Also it was illegal for any private person to be in possession of a live kiwi. The Stratford man shrewdly opined that if he sent the rare bird to Wellington it would presently be in a glass case in the museum. “To hell with them,” he said; “they’re not going to get this fellow to mope to death in their zoo. Back to the bush he goes.” He took the bird out to the wilds again and liberated him. The “kiwi-tea” may be there still, or there may be sundry “pintos” roving the bush. By the way, that Maori expression for a white kiwi is the name painted on the bows of a red-fun-nel collier trading between Wellington and the West Coast. “Kiwitea” here is a misnomer, for the steamer is as black as the coal she carries.