130 Transactions. 



A very complete and graphic account of the kuakas habits 

 is given by Sir Walter Buller in his monumental work on New 

 Zealand birds (vol. ii, p. 40), from information supplied by 

 Captain G. Mair. The learned doctor describes the extraor- 

 dinary migration it performs every year. Starting in large 

 organized parties from near the North Cape of New Zealand in 

 the end of March or the beginning of April, it makes its way 

 northward, passing along by China, Japan, and Manchuria, 

 until it reaches Eastern Siberia, where it remains for several 

 months and rears its young ; the rest of the year being spent in 

 its alternate home in the Malay Archipelago, Polynesia, Australia, 

 and New Zealand — the New Zealand contingent returning in 

 straggling flocks from September to Christmas. 



The flight of birds has often helped the navigator in locating 

 a country. In his account of the discovery of Bass Strait in 

 1798 Flinders describes the continuous stream of sooty petrels 

 or mutton-birds heading in a certain direction, which he took 

 to be an indication " that there must be in the large bight one 

 ©r more inhabited islands," which eventually proved to be the 

 Furneaux Group. Similar instances are recorded in the history 

 of other voyages of discovery ; and it seems to me that an ob- 

 servant and adventurous people like the Polynesians could not 

 have failed to observe the annual migrations of the kuaka to and 

 fro between known spots, and that a party of them, driven by 

 some tribal quarrel, or by some urgent necessity to seek a new 

 home, would not have hesitated to trust themselves to the 

 guidance of the winged pilot over the wide seas that separated 

 them from New Zealand. The large number of birds would 

 indicate a considerable tract of country, while the fact that on 

 their southern journey they went in "straggling flocks" ex- 

 tending over several weeks would enable the travellers to check 

 their course from day to day. 



A careful observation of the routes travelled by the birds 

 would doubtless throw some light on this theory. 



Art. XXI. — On a Stone-carved Ancient Wooden Image of a 



Maori Eel-god. 



By A. K. Newman. 

 [Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 2nd August, 1905.] 



Plate l.X. 

 This quaint figure of a Maori god of eels was dug up recently 

 whilst a field was being ploughed near the City of Auckland. 

 From its position when found, it is clearly of great antiquity. 

 It is a relic of the Stone Age, having been cut by stone chisels. 



