238 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND CHAP, x 



those that live by prey regard little whether what they 

 take is of their own or any other species. But any one who 

 considers the admirable chain of nature, in which man, 

 alone endowed with reason, justly claims the highest rank, 

 and in which the half -reasoning elephant, the sagacious 

 dog, the architect beaver, etc., in whom instinct so nearly 

 resembles reason as to have been mistaken for it by men of 

 no mean capacities, are placed next ; from these descending 

 through the less informed quadrupeds and birds to the 

 fish and insects, who seem, besides the instinct of fear which 

 is given them for self-preservation, to be moved only by the 

 stings of hunger to eat, and those of lust to propagate their 

 species, which, when born, are left entirely to their own 

 care ; and at last by the medium of the oysters, etc., which 

 not being able to move, but as tossed about by the waves, 

 must in themselves be furnished with both sexes, that the 

 species may be continued; shading itself away into the 

 vegetable kingdom, for the preservation of whom neither 

 sensation nor instinct is wanted ; whoever considers this, I 

 say, will easily see that no conclusion in favour of such a 

 practice can be drawn from the actions of a race of beings 

 placed so infinitely below us in the order of nature. 



But to return to my subject. Simple as their food is, 

 their cookery so far as I saw is as simple : a few stones 

 heated and laid in a hole, with the meat laid upon them and 

 covered with hay, seems to be the most difficult part of it. 

 Fish and birds they generally broil, or rather toast, spiking 

 them upon a long skewer, the bottom of which is fixed 

 under a stone, another stone being put under the fore 

 part of the skewer, which is raised or lowered by moving the 

 second stone as circumstances may require. The fern 

 roots are laid upon the open fire until they are thoroughly 

 hot and their bark burnt to a coal ; they are then beaten 

 with a wooden hammer over a stone, which causes all the 

 bark to fly off, and leaves the inside, consisting of a small 

 proportion of a glutinous pulp mixed with many fibres, 

 which they generally spit out, after having sucked each 

 mouthful a long time. Strange and unheard of as it must 



