10 BIRDS OF THE WATER 



of Tutira by the peninsula Te Puna, on 

 the east, and on the west by the ridge Te 

 Korokoro-o-te-hine-rakai. 



These three sheets of water might quite 

 well, therefore, have been considered 

 separate lakes, and given rise to the name 

 Tutira. The natives, on the other hand, 

 declare the word Tutira is taken from a 

 particular stance assumed during the spear- 

 ing of eels, and this, I believe, is the more 

 probable derivation. These sheets of water 

 were probably pools and backwaters of a 

 vast old-world river system that at one time 

 flowed rapidly, and at a later period oozed 

 in chains of lakes at the base of the 

 western mountains behind the present 

 Maungahararu range, and which have left 

 the conglomerate deposits that everywhere 

 crop up throughout the centre of the run. 

 Then at a later geological period the lakes 

 must have drained themselves directly 

 towards the ocean from the southern end, 

 and not as at present from the nor '-west 

 corner. It is impossible to fully enter into 

 this subject here, but a bit of corroborative 

 evidence may be considered — the evidence 



