THE OCEAN AS A SOURCE OF FOOD SUPPLY 195 



passage of a boat through them, the stroke of the 

 oars will kill many. But fish are amazingly plentiful 

 everywhere within the harbour, and correspondingly 

 abundant outside all around the coasts. If it were 

 necessary, I really believe that New Zealand alone 

 could supply the world with fish, not, as in the case 

 of the banks of Newfoundland, of one sort alone, or, 

 as with us, where the only fish we get in such amazing 

 numbers are the herring tribes and mackerel, but 

 of so many varieties all of such high quality that 

 the enumeration of them is quite bewildering. Two 

 varieties of fish are found in New Zealand waters, 

 which I firmly believe will successfully challenge all 

 other fish in the world for supremacy in point of 

 flavour. They are the "trumpeter" and the "frost- 

 fish," to give them their trivial names, which are the 

 only ones I know them by. But, indeed, there is 

 such an embarrassment of riches, as regards fish, 

 around New Zealand, as no other land can boast of, 

 and I must, for fear of becoming tedious, leave it at 

 that. 



Another form of oceanic wealth in the shape of 

 food is possessed by New Zealand in great abundance, 

 oysters. They are small and irregular in shape, but 

 of delicious flavour, and, owing to the absence of any 

 polluting element such as sewage, free from any danger 

 to the eater. But these succulent rock oysters only 

 abound in the North Island. In the south, about 

 Foveaux Straits, are found the bottom oysters, but 

 not in any great quantities. New Zealand is also 

 extremely rich in cetacea, especially in the largest 

 sperm whales, which come closer to the shores here 

 than to any other inhabited land known. The Solander 



