56 TORY CHANNEL. [PART I. 



upon bread and potatoes, but most readily on the 

 latter. These parrots seem to have regular times 

 of feeding : early in the morning they are found on 

 the trees which yield their food. During the heat 

 of the day they play about quietly in the topmost 

 branches of high trees. Before the sun sets they 

 assemble and fly with discordant screams over the 

 forest, alighting sometimes on a dead tree in an open 

 spot, or where their curiosity is in any way arrested. 

 When it is dark they become silent ; but rarely an 

 hour of the night passes that one of their fluting 

 calls is not heard ; and with the dawn of the morn- 

 ing they are again in full activity. They nest in 

 hollow trees, and are said by the natives to lay four 

 or five white eggs. Their flesh is tender and well- 

 flavoured, and the natives are very expert in enticing 

 them by means of decoy-birds, or by imitating their 

 cry. When one is caught or wounded, the rest 

 hover about it with screams, and, one after another, 

 become the victims of their commiseration. 



Above Te-awa-iti, towards the southern entrance 

 of Tory Channel, are two other bays, Wanganui 

 and Hokokuri. The access to them is over the 

 hills or by water, as a protruding and rocky shore 

 separates the bay of Te-awa-iti from them ; this is, in 

 fact, the general character of the coast in Queen 

 Charlotte's Sound. In Hokokuri Bay, on a fine flat 

 of fertile earth about one square mile in extent, 

 stands a large native settlement. The natives re- 

 ceived us with their usual politeness, and afterwards 



