Colenso. — On the Native Dog of New Zealand. 495 



The depth of the cavity was a full arm's length, and from 

 the solid nature of the accumulated soil I should suppose 

 these implements must have been deposited where I found 

 them at least eighty to a hundred years, and perhaps far 

 longer. 



The strange part appears to be the remarkable way in 

 which I was led, as if by intuition, to where they were found, 

 more especially when the next morning a laborious search of 

 five or six hours resulted in not a single trace of anything else 

 being discovered. 



Abt. LXXI. — Observations on Mr. T. White's Paper " On 

 the Native Dog of New Zealand" — Transactions of the 

 Neiv Zealand Institute, Vol. xxiv., Art. 51. 



By W. Colenso, F.E.S., F.L.S. (Lond.), &c. 



[Bead before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 28th November, 



1892. j 



Every kind of evidence is made to tell by writers who have a theory to 

 defend. Max Mullek: "The Gifford Lectures," 1891, p. 428. 



As headstrong as an allegory ou the banks of the Nile. 



(Mrs. Malaprop.) Sheridan: "The Rivals." 



I regret to see a long paper by Mr. Taylor White in the last 

 volume (xxiv.) of Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 

 ostensibly on the native dog of New Zealand ; but, as far as 

 concerns the genuine native dog of New Zealand, it is full of 

 error. And as he has mentioned my name in his paper, and 

 so some of his correspondents (though scarcely fairly), I feel 

 constrained to write a little more additional on that subject. 

 Moreover, I am the more inclined to do this through having 

 very recently obtained some further valuable authentic in- 

 formation on the ancient and long-extinct New Zealand dog. 

 Not, however, that any such was wanted by the seeker after 

 real facts to complete what we already knew concerning it. 



Mr. White's paper is pretty nearly wholly a compilation, 

 and that from newspapers and correspondents — men of to-day. 

 Much, however, of what they have written is correct (and I 

 could furnish similar statements long known to me, from 

 before this country became a colony, respecting both wild and 

 tame imported dogs in New Zealand), but it has nothing 

 whatever to do with the subject in question. Had Mr. White 

 really cared to know the truth — the indisputable and genuine 



