Downes. — Eels and Eel-weirs. 303 



The natives were very much excited when they were caught. The large 

 eels of this variety are usually dried for winter use, although they can 

 be caught throughout the year. In sun-drying, the heads are taken off ; 

 they are skinned and split open, the bone being taken out, and they are 

 then dried for several days on stages, when they will keep for several 

 months. This eel is usually boiled or steamed with potatoes in an umu, or 

 steam-oven. 



Another yellowish eel is tuna-kaingara, which is said to be poor and 

 lean. It has a large head, is readily caught with the bob, and does not go 

 to the sea with the April floods. 



In the upper reaches of the Whanganui River there is a tributary 

 known as the Ohura, which, owing to its situation and formation, is a 

 most suitable place to capture the young eel-fry as they go up-stream. 

 This little eel, varying in size from 2 in. to 6 in. in length, is called tuna- 

 riki, and the Maori up till a generation ago used to journey down from 

 Taumarunui and up from Pipiriki to procure this delicacy. The fishing 

 commenced in the early summer, long after the tuna-heke migration was 

 over, and lasted for two and sometimes three months. The manner of 

 taking tuna-riki was as follows : At the mouth of the Ohura there is a 

 small waterfall, 4 ft. or 5 ft. high, at the foot of which is a very deep pool. 

 The little fish congregate here in countless numbers, probably waiting for 

 a flood to enable them to mount the obstacle and continue their course 

 up-stream. Loose bundles or balls were made by the native women, who 

 rolled fern, rushes, and manuka together until the mass reached about the 

 size of a football. These were then tied up with flax to hold them in 

 shape, and let down into the hole at the foot of the fall overnight, being 

 held to the shore by flax lines. It is said that these little fish are very 

 curious and attracted by anything new, and so crawl into the balls in great 

 numbers. I have an idea that they may be attracted by the fern-pollen, 

 but I may be wrong in this. These bundles are called koere, and the 

 Maoris say that two small balls are much more attractive to the fish than 

 one large one. When the koere are lifted in the morning they are shaken 

 over a kit, and the eels drop out. Captain Mair* has a note on this little 

 eel, in which he says that between 2 cwt. and 3 cwt. were taken in a single 

 night by hanging funnel-shaped bags on the Ohura Falls, up which these 

 little eels were making their way in thousands. I have not seen the natives 

 fishing in the manner described by Mair, but saw upwards of half a sack 

 taken by the koere method about twenty years ago. 



At the Waitangi Falls, Bay of Islands, which are some 20 ft. in height, 

 composed of basaltic rock, the water falling vertically into a deep pool 

 subject to tidal flow, Mr. Percy Smith informed me that he had seen 

 thousands of young eels, from 2 in. to 6 in. long, wriggling up the rough 

 rocky surface, where a thin film of water descended. The Maoris came to 

 the falls in their canoes and scraped the young eels into baskets for food.f 

 There is an eel well known by repute to all the river natives of this 

 district. It is called tuna-tuhoro, and is described as a black eel about 3 ft. 

 long, with a very large head and small tail. Now and again it is hooked, 

 and occasionally it is found in the hinaki with other eels. It is a fish of 

 ill omen. When the natives were building a pa-tuna on the Au-tapu 

 Rapid, Whanganui River, four years ago, and had ten timbers driven into 



* Notes on Fishes in Wanganui River, Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 12, p. 316, 1880. 



t Sir Ray Lankester notes, in* .From an Easy Chair, that in England young eels 

 are sometimes seen " wriggling in numbers up the face of a damp rock or wall ten or 

 fifteen feet high." 



