CorENso.—On the Maori Races of New Zealand. 369 
were spawning and in their prime. If at sea, out of sight of land, or in a 
strange trackless country or forest, they shaped their course by the stars and 
by the sun. The diurnal ebbing and flowing of the tide they well knew, 
although they attributed it to the constant inhalation and exhalation of a 
certain monstrous being living in the sea in deep water, named Te Parata. 
They noticed the natural affinities of plants; hence the two Solanums (S. 
aviculare and S. nigrum), though widely differing in appearance, were both 
named poroporo; the two large pea-flowered plants (one a hard-wooded tree, 
the yellow Edwardsia grandiflora, and the other an herbaceous shrub, the 
red Clianthus puniceus), were respectively called kowhai and kowhai-ngutu- 
kaakaa (kowhai and parrot's.bill kowhai); the black and the red birches 
(Fagus fusca and F. solandri), though greatly unlike in leafing, bark, &c., 
they appropriately knew as tawhairauiti and tawhairaunui (large-leaved and 
small-leaved tawhai) ; as also with the two species of olive (Olea cunning- 
hamii and O. montana), with the two species of flax (Phormium), and with 
several others. They not only well knew the difference between their 
common fern-trees, giving them proper distinctive names; but another and 
scarce one, Dicksonia antarctica, they distinguished by the name of wekiponga, 
because it possesses characters in common with two of the commoner ones, 
severally called by them weki and ponga. It is also evident, from their 
proper names and descriptive remarks, that long before Linneus’s age they 
knew something of the sexes of the plants; they had noticed, if there was 
little or no pollen discharged in the summer from the male catkins (amente) 
of the taxaceous trees (and' which the writer has sometimes seen escape 
in clouds) there would be no fruit that year for them, and their favourite 
pigeons would not be fat; and they were. well acquainted with certain 
curious natural facts, such as the cuckoo (Chrysococcyx lucidus) laying her 
eggs in the nest of the little riroriro (Miro toitoi) ; the eel having two holes 
to its lurking place in the mud; the sea migration of the lamprey ; and the 
various metamorphoses of insects. 
(2.) That powerful moral faeulty, conscience, often showed itself 
strongly ; so did its close attendant shame—“ that lurks behind ;" although, 
from custom, the New Zealanders often exhibited much more shame at little 
failings and mistakes than at great sins. They had a large share of fidelity 
and attachment; hence the slaves and lower classes were attached to their 
masters and lords; and hence, too, they frequently left their homes and 
tribes to live with and work for strangers, to whom they had become attached ; 
and their women generally made good and faithful wives to the early 
European settlers and whalers. Their filial attachment, however, was very 
slight. They were often very patient, and could exercise well and for a 
long time the virtues of endurance, especially if they had any object in view. 
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