340 Transactions. 



A strange bird in Maori eyes is the hakuai of the off-shore 

 islands in the far south. The Natives of Foveaux Strait and 

 Stewart Island sail off in March and April every year to the 

 craggy islets near the rugged west coast of Stewart Island for 

 their annual mutton-bird harvest, and it is there that they 

 meet with the hakuai. Whole families go mutton-birding — men, 

 women, and children — and camp on the islands for some weeks. 

 At night the fowlers gather round their camp-fires, and old songs 

 are sung and folk-tales and ghost-stories retold. And in the 

 darkness sometimes they hear the ghost-bird screaming its 

 " Haku-ai, haku-ai, Ooh ! " and then a hair-raising swoosh of 

 great wings as some mysterious creature of the crags sweeps 

 past them into the night, crying as it goes. This bird, called the 

 " hakuai " from its cry, is spoken of as a spirit. To see it is an 

 evil omen ; it is the banshee of the islands. The Maoris say it 

 has been frequently heard on Herekopare or Mummy Island. 

 which lies off the entrance to Paterson Inlet, and on the islands 

 off the south-west cape of Stewart Island. One is reminded of 

 Blackmore's description of the moorland birds in " Lorna 

 Doone " " — Vast lonely birds, that cried at night and moved the 

 whole air with their pinions, yet no man ever saw them " — and 

 again of the hokioi of North Island legend, the great war-bird 

 of which the song says — 



Two fathoms long are its pinions ; 

 Its wings make a booming noise. 

 U lives in the open space of heaven, 

 The companion of the crashing thundei. 



The mystery of the hakuai may be dispelled by assuming it to 

 be — as it no doubt is — the frigate-bird (Fregata aquila). The 

 wings of these lords of the seas have a great spread. 



The kotuku, the beautiful white heron or crane, so famous 

 in Maori poetry and proverb, is still to be found in one or two 

 parts of the South Island. It is many years since one was seen 

 in the North. It is said that there are some stray kotuku occa- 

 sionally to be seen in the southern bays of Stewart Island. But 

 the only place to my own knowledge where this rare species 

 yet exists is in the Okarito Lagoon, a labyrinth of tidal creeks 

 and sandbanks and small islands down on the West Coast, 

 about ninety miles south of Hokitika. This lagoon swarms with 

 all kinds of waterbirds and waders, and amongst them are some 

 white herons. One of these birds is frequently seen, and ventures 

 right into the Okarito Township. He is often observed fishing 

 in stately solitude in a little pond just at the back of the local 

 hotel ; and he seems to know he is safe — no gun is ever raised 

 against the white spirit-like bird of the lagoon. Certainly there 

 is little to disturb him in Okarito— the very "deadest" of all 



