Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/232

208 generally are supplanting the native ones very rapidly. The English sparrow has become very common in New Zealand, and will doubtless destroy some of the native birds."

Fred asked about the birds of the country, but his informant could not describe them with any degree of accuracy. Later the youth learned that there are one hundred and thirty-six varieties in all, of which seventy-three are land birds. One of these, the Apteryx, or Kiwi, is wingless, and lives in the mountains. He is very scarce, and only rarely captured or even seen. There are six varieties of parrots, and two of falcons—one about the size of a pigeon, and the other a very active and industrious sparrow-hawk. There is one owl, and there is a blackbird, which is called the "parson bird" by the settlers, for the reason that it has two white feathers under its chin like the ends of a clergyman's neck-tie.

Fred asked if New Zealand was not the home of the now extinct Dinornis, the largest bird of which we have any positive knowledge.

"Yes," replied his informant; "the bird was called Moa by the natives, and it is pretty clearly established that he was abundant when the Maoris came here, but was wiped out of existence some two hundred years ago. Skeletons of the Moa have been found, and show that the largest of these birds must have attained a height of fourteen to sixteen feet."

"Were they dangerous?" was the very natural query which followed.

"Not by any means; they were wingless, and belonged to the ostrich family, and the naturalists say they were stupid birds, that could easily fall a prey to man. This fact accounts for their extinction in the first two or three centuries of the presence of the Maoris in New Zealand. It is fortunate that their skeletons have been preserved in the earth, so that we can know positively that such great birds existed."

"How do you know the Maoris lived upon these birds?"

"Partly through their traditions, and partly from the discovery of many of the bones of the Moa in the ovens and in the heaps of rubbish around the ruins of ancient villages. The natives devoured any birds they could catch; parrots, pigeons, parson-birds, anything and everything edible was legitimate food. Those that dwelt on the coast lived chiefly on a fish diet, and those in the interior made annual or more frequent migrations to the sea-side for purposes of fishing. The rivers abound in eels, and they grow to an enormous size; I have seen eels weighing fifty pounds each, and have heard of larger ones."