Frs., 1893. (HE INDUSTRIES. OF THE MAORIS. III 
dexterity and rapidity with which he produced his long hanks and 
coils of twine and cord, keeping them regular, too, as to thickness, 
was truly wonderful.” A great variety of ropes were made to suit 
special requirements; flat plaited ones to put over the shoulders in 
carrying loads, thick stranded ones for heavy work, and a peculiar 
fine cord bound round with a still finer one like the fourth string of a 
fiddle, used only for one purpose—to bind the under aprons of chiefs’ 
daughters. 
The Maoris made fishing nets of enormous size, 5 fathoms 
deep and two or three hundred fathoms in length. With these 
mackerel were caught, a fish which has since disappeared almost 
entirely from the waters round New Zealand. They also caught 
sharks and fresh-water eels, which were dried and preserved for 
future use; there was no mutton in those days. Bivalves and cray- 
fish were also extracted, dried, and preserved. The rat was a great 
delicacy, once very plentiful; itis now extinct. The following is Mr. 
Colenso’s description of its preparation :—‘‘ It was carefully singed 
and so denuded of its fur, then its bones were broken within the body, 
and extracted by the anus without breaking the skin; this done it 
was cooked in their earth-ovens, and being very fat, made choice 
plump morsels, somewhat resembling large sausages. The contents 
of its stomach (being a frugivorous animal) were also eaten.” 
The Maories were fond of perfumes which they prepared from 
Hepatic, Hymenophyllum, and other plants; the choicest was got 
from the gum of the peculiar plant tavamea (Aciphylla colensoi) with 
much ceremony. Interesting descriptions of the manufacture of black 
pigment for tattooing made by burning resins and catching the soot 
are given; the soot is mixed with fats, and must then be eaten by a 
starved dog, and the voided feces gathered for use. 
The extremely interesting and valuable paper by Mr. Chapman 
is replete with information of which only a brief abstract can be 
given. It is forty or fifty years since there was a regular manufac- 
ture of stone implements, and too little is known of the way in which 
these implements were made and used. So soon as the savage 
acquires a steel axe and a gun, his beautiful but ineffective stone 
weapon becomes useless; it is laid aside, and no more are made. In 
a few years all the elder savages are dead, and the younger ones have a 
very transient impression of the ways of their cannibal ancestry. 
With small exception, the whole of the various kinds of founamu 
or ‘“‘greenstone” is found in a restricted locality on the west coast 
of the south island. It occurs in boulders in the deposits of gravel 
in the beds of the Rivers Taramakau and Arahura, and the boulders 
are also found on the beach at the mouth of the rivers, cast up by the 
sea. The location of the dyke or vein from which the boulders came 
is not known. Formerly the stone was rare and expensive, but since 
these river gravels have been worked and washed for gold, consider- 
able quantities have been found, and it is now not worth more than 
