CoiiENSo. — Reminiscences of tlie Ancient Maoris. 445 



to New Guinea and Australia is evidently that those coun- 

 tries were already occupied by a fauna of marsupials perfectly 

 adapted to the most varied conditions of life, and therefore 

 later comers were unable to maintain themselves. We shall 

 have to give up the theory of the floating trees with Sus, 

 Cams, Muridce, Lacertidce, fresh- water Molluscs, &c., in their 

 branches, as well as many other things of Wallace's hypo- 

 thesis ; and the botanists will not tarry to reduce the trans- 

 ports by currents and wind to a moderate measure. 



Opposed to W^allace's theory of the immutabiUfcy of the 

 continents and depths of the sea is another which, distinguish- 

 ing strictly between the distribution of the different groups of 

 animals, endeavours to find the ways of distribution of the 

 genera and families existent on our globe already during 

 Palaeozoic and Mesozoic times, along which the organisms 

 spread during the Mesozoic era. May the senior master of 

 zoogeography not be angry with this view, but be cheerful 

 in the thought that, however far opinions on certain questions 

 may be divided, it was he who showed us the way by which 

 progress can be made ; that it was he who gave, in an exem- 

 plary manner, to zoogeography its modern solid basis, its new 

 method of procedure, its ways of interrogation, as well as its 

 aims and its problems. 



Art. XLVII. — Vestiges : Beminiscences : Mcmorahilia of 

 Works, Deeds, and Sayings of the Ancient Maoris. 



By W. CoLENSO, F.E.S., F.L.S. 



[Bead before the Haivhe's Bay Pliilosophical Institute, 12th October, 



1891.'] 



" Ex ungue leonem." — l-'rov. 



When relating any peculiar and striking doings of the Maoris 

 of the olden time, which I had either seen or heard of in my 

 early days among them (now nearly sixty years ago), I have 

 not infrequently been asked to commit the same to writing, 

 or, in other words, " to make a book." This latter, however, 

 I am not inclined to do, partly from want of time for such a 

 purpose. Notwithstanding, I have thought I would jot down 

 briefly a few of their more remarkable and little-known an- 

 cient acts and deeds, as many of them have long become 

 obsolete, and are scarcely known even by name to the present 

 generation of Maoris ; and very likely there is not another 

 European now living besides myself who knows anything 

 about their old doings from actual observation ; having fre- 



