White. — On the Native Dog of Neiv Zealand. 545 



Egmont, a small pack (four or five) of wild dogs passed within 

 20 yards of me. One of them I was particularly struck with. 

 It was jet-black, with long hair, prick ears, long tail, and to 

 me looked as if it might have been a well-conditioned black 

 fox — in fact, it might answer to skin No. 8 on the sketch. 

 They were following up a cow with a young calf at foot. 

 They did not bark, but made a most uncanny noise — a 

 strange sort of howl. Often we have been awakened in camp 

 by this strangely human — or unhuman — sound, and have 

 turned out to answer, as we thought, the ' cooee ' of some 

 unfortunate lost in the bush ; but as we listened more atten- 

 tively we found that it was the cry of the wild dogs. The camp 

 dogs always got into a restless, uneasy state whenever they 

 heard this sound.— Yours, etc., " W. H. Skinner." 



In a previous letter : — 



"The mat was purchased by myself at Parihaka in June, 

 1889. The fact of nay having purchased the mat caused quite 

 a small sensation at Parihaka, and a friend of mine, being in 

 the village the following day, overheard Te Whiti and several 

 of the older men discussing the affair and the history of the 

 mat. Te Wliiti remarked that it was at least eighty years 

 old, and w^as the only one to his knowledge anywhere in the 

 district. In conversation with a native of the same hapu he 

 gives its age as ninety or a hundred years, proving beyond 

 doubt in my mind that they are genuine old dogskins. This 

 part of New Zealand — ^Cape Egmont — was quite unvisited by 

 the very early whalers and traders up to about the years 1825 

 to 1830, and only then very occasionally, so there can by no 

 possibility be any chance of these skins being crossed with 

 the European dog ; and I have yet to learn that the very early 

 traders brought dogs with them as an article of trade. Wha- 

 katau's father, Kiore, was the arlki of his tribe, and "Wha- 

 katau's elder brother, Paora Kukutae, led the tribe at the 

 battle of Waireka, in March, 1860, where he was killed ; so 

 they are a family of rank in these parts. 



"Description of dogskin mat Hurukuri (history as given 

 by Whauhoka : Eawahotana tamaiti, ko ^Thakatau, potiki 

 no Eawaho te Hurukuri) : — ■ 



"No. 1. — Dark brown on back, shading off to brown 

 underneath and on head : prick ears: length, 3ft. 6in. ; width, 

 1ft. Sin. : hair about fin. to lin. in length ; longer, of course, 

 on tail : the tail at present is stumpy, but I am inclined to 

 think it has been trimmed back to this. 



" No. 2 is a most difficult one to describe : A light tan 



underneath ; a darker shade of tan, freely intermixed with 



black, along back and to^J sides ; very light tan under-side 



hams and under tail (this is the skin of a very large dog) : 



35 



