500 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



bleaching in the sun, and ornamented with white feathers 

 fastened to its skull" — are, to me, a convincing proof that 

 such bones were not obtained from the common small New 

 Zealand dog whose flesh had been used for food (which never 

 could become tapu with the Maori), but only from some pecu- 

 liar and prized animal, such as an imported and high-priced 

 and highly-valued one would be. 



Mr. White and his many helpers would have escaped their 

 erroneous statements, inferences, and suppositions had they 

 only steadily borne in mind that the indigenous New 

 Zealand dog was a purely domestic animal, and never wild. 

 They might just as reasonably have written of wild dogs or 

 wild sheep in England at the present day. 



Mr. Skinner also says, "I am surprised that Mr. Colenso 

 takes up the line that the native dog was a small, miserable 

 cur. From conversations held with intelligent natives I gather 

 that the old Maori dog was by no means a small animal, but 

 a very fine animal indeed, and good-looking withal." And 

 further on he says (writing of one of the dogskin mats), " This 

 is the skin of a very large dog — length 3ft. 8in., by 1ft. Gin." 

 (Paper, pp. 544, 546.) 



The very Maori name of the skin mat (or mats) given by 

 Mr. Skinner helps also to confirm its modern origin — 

 hurukuri = dog's hair or skin. For a dogskin mat made 

 from the indigenous Maori dog would not have been so 

 termed ; each kind (and there were several sorts — patterns, I 

 may call them) being known by its own special name, just as 

 in their flax mats. I have seen many such brown dogskin 

 mats, and have also seen them manufactured, in a.d. 1835-37, 

 which I have also recorded in some of my early papers. 



Captain Good, another of Mr. White's correspondents, also 

 says (in his letter quoted in Mr. White's paper), "With respect 

 to Mr. Colenso's theory of the native dog, I think he must be 

 in error." (Paper, p. 551.) I am not aware of having pro- 

 pounded any " theory" concerning it — because I have none, 

 never had any. All that I did (in my paper) was to show 

 what the ancient native dog really was, from the united tes- 

 timony of reliable scientific European witnesses, who had often 

 seen it, and that, too, in large numbers, in various parts of 

 New Zealand, and at different times, and who also wrote its 

 description, &c, at the time. Such evidence of facts is unex- 

 ceptionable, and with me irresistible. 



I did, however, put into my paper a brief resume of the 

 New Zealand dog, drawn up entirely from their descriptions of 

 it, which I here copy ; as many who may hear and read this 

 may not have the same opportunity as Captain Good had of 

 reading that paper, written fifteen years ago; and such will 

 further show how widely different in every respect the New 



