26 THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 
THE HUIA (HOO-YEH). 
The Huia is the royal bird of the Maori as the Eagle is among 
our natives. Wherever you see a Maori in full dress, male or female, 
you will not fail to notice that the head is ornamented with one or 
more Huia feathers. The bird is about the size of our wild Pigeon. 
It is intensely black, with a bluish cast, with the exception of a broad, 
terminal band of purest white across the tail. The male and female 
are equal in size and the same in color and marking. That which 
makes the Huia most interesting is the marked difference in the 
beaks of the male and female. The reader will at once notice in 
THE HUIA. 
the picture before him this very great divergence. At first, Natural- 
ists were greatly puzzled. ‘The two birds with beaks so exceedingly 
unlike were marked down in the catalogues as belonging to different 
species. It was afterwards thought by some that the one with 
the long beak was the male, from the fact that it appeared at times 
to be feeding the other. At length the mystery was solved—the 
short beaked one is the male. Their principal food is the large 
white grub found inside the thick bark of dead trees. Without that 
