Mokeis. — On the Tracks of Captain Cook. 509 



holes and arches are not uncommon along the coast ; witness 

 one near Cape Brett, to which Cook gave a name with a play 

 in it not generally perceived. Sir Percy Brett was one of the 

 Lords of the Admiralty. Because of the mistaken story that 

 Percy is "pierce eye," the name was often then spelt, as by 

 this sailor, " Piercy." The islet opposite Cape Brett having 

 this curious hole in the rock Cook called " Piercy." 



At Tolaga, Banks says, " among other nicknacks Dr. So- 

 lander bought a boy's top shap'd like what boys play with 

 in England, which they [the natives] made signs was to be 

 whipped in the same manner." 



At Ship Cove, Queen Charlotte Sound, the Government 

 has wisely made a reserve. Would it not be as well to reserve 

 the land round the cove at Tolaga? It cannot now be very 

 valuable, but in time it will be visited more and more, and it 

 would be a shame to permit its appearance to be altered. It 

 is not the plough that is to be feared so much as the cutting- 

 down of timbers, from which a reservation now might save 

 the land. The cove is sheltered on the east by an island. 

 Eesidents were calling it "the Island," and only one knew 

 its name — " Sporing's Island." Sporing was the secretary 

 of Mr. Joseph Banks, and the reason why Cook named the 

 island after him is given in Banks. :;: 



From Tolaga I returned to Gisborne, and, with the bishop's 

 maps and paper in my hand, surveyed the scene of the first 

 landing in New Zealand. Nothing can be added to his 

 account. The only addition that can be made to the early 

 history of Poverty Bay is contained in a letter that, after my 

 return to Melbourne, I wrote to a Gisborne newspaper. 

 For the sake of record it is worth reprinting : — . 



To the Editor of the Poverty Bay Herald. 



When I was in Gisborne a few weeks ago I was told that the 

 inhabitants disliked the name of ''Poverty Bay," given by Captain 

 Cook. It is not for me to say a word with respect to the propriety 

 of the change of a name to which history is attached, and not a brief 

 history. But it may interest your readers to know that the great sailor 



* Quoth Mr. Banks: "While Mr. Sporing was drawing on the 

 island he saw a most strange bird fly over his head. He described it as 

 being about as large as a kite, and brown like one. His tail, however, was 

 of so enormous a length that he at first took it for a flock of small birds 

 flying over him. He who is a grave thinking man, and is not at all given 

 to telling wonderful stories, says he judged it to be yards in 



length." Before the word " yards " Banks has left a gap, as if intending 

 to go and ask Sporing whether he could not take a yard or two off ; 

 but the wiiter never returned to fill the gap with a number. The proxi- 

 mate length of the tail is not known, but it is quite evident that there 

 was much amusement on board about the bird, and so Cook named the 

 island after the secretary, grave and thinking. Poor Mr. Sporing was 

 amongst those who were taken ill at Batavia, and he died at sea a month 

 after the " Endeavour " left that fatal port. 



