OTHER ALIENS ON TUTIRA PRIOR TO 1882 315 



Four years later according to one observer, five years later 

 according to another, a red-deer stag had reached Tutira. George Bee, 

 then working his father's station on the Heru-o-Tureia, believes he 

 saw it first in '68 ; MacMahon, at that date managing Sir Thomas 

 Tancred's Maungaharuru property, thinks it arrived in '67. Aparahama, 

 Anaru Kune, and other natives give no specific date, but mention con- 

 temporaneous events which, however, I can only fix as having taken 

 place also "about" the late 'sixties. 



The attraction of the stag to the spot chosen was doubtless the 

 small herd of wild horses strayed from native villages deserted and 

 never afterwards repeopled. With them the lonely deer formed one 

 of those curious animal friendships that strayed creatures make, a 

 companionship similar to that of another stag which, at a much later 

 date, consorted with the Black Head stud bulls, 1 or to that of the first 

 rabbit seen north of Petane, which for several seasons accompanied a 

 flock of "wild turkeys" on the Tangoio run. The locality otherwise 

 was in no way suitable. There was not an acre of grass-land in the 

 neighbourhood ; it was covered with tutu thickets and tangled bracken. 



There, however, the deer remained for several years, a source of 

 speculation to settlers and shepherds and of wonder to parties of natives 

 pig-hunting or pigeon-shooting. Although the late Mr J. N. Williams 

 and other friends and correspondents in Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay 

 knew of the whereabouts of this wandered stag, the stages of its journey, 

 as might have been expected, had been unmarked. That it followed 

 for a great portion of the distance the mountain -top route I have little 

 doubt. By this line the forest lands and densely wooded gorges 

 running athwart its route would be avoided. Had the stag travelled 

 by the coastal route, consisting then of strips of sea-shore and narrow 

 native paths connecting station with station, sooner or later he would 

 have fallen in with cattle or horses and stayed his career on one or 

 another of the coastal runs. That he did not do so proves, I think, that 



1 Mr Leslie M'Hardy of Black Head writes as follows : " The stag you inquire after 

 used to come here about the month of April every year and stay for about four months. I 

 remember him for three years, and the last year was the year of the Tarawera emption '86. 

 He always stayed in the bull paddock at the cattle station, and was always to be found in the 

 company of one old white bull. He seemed quite tame, as we could ride quite close to him, and 

 on one occasion he followed the bulls into the stockyard. There was no doubt about him being 

 a Wairarapa deer, as he was a typical Windsor Park specimen. He used to be very cruel to 

 our bulls, but they got so used to him that they would not fight with him, and would lie down 

 when he came near them." 



