52 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
by a passing cloud; and then to hear of how, in former days, the proper 
skilled scout* perched on a cliff would descry the approaching shoal of 
mackerel, or kahawai, or other annual summer fish, from the change in 
the colour of the sea, and would direct accordingly the takers with the big 
seine nets in their canoes.+ From similar positions, too, we ourselves, 
when perched on the cliffy heights overlooking the deeply-embayed tidal 
arms and reaches of the sea,—whether at the Bay of Islands, on the many 
inlets and branches of the Kawakawa, Waikare, Waitangi, or Kerikeri 
rivers,—or at Rangaunu,—or at Whangaruru, or at Ngunguru,—or at 
Kaipara !—or at Whangarei, with its multitude of inlets, creeks and 
branches,—we ourselves have often received great benefits from their 
accurate sight, well-knowing, even from a distance, the precise state of 
the tide on those muddy flats and in those mouths of rivers below, and that 
solely from the hue of the water there; and, in so-doing we were often 
saved a considerable part of what was always a disagreeable job. For, in all 
those places, owing to there being no beachos, and the banks clothed with 
dense vegetation to the water's edge, with a belt, or thicket, of close-growing 
outlying mangroves, the usual rise and fall of the tide could not be seen. 
Their quickness of vision also instantaneously and correctly detected 
what kind of fish it was that had fleetly passed us at sea, when out together 
in our boat or canoe, and that more from its peculiar colour, than from its 
form and manner of swimming. And so with their small fresh-water fishes, 
many of which closely resemble each other (including not only the various 
species, but, also, the differing varieties of those species, some of which also 
change their colours with age, as well as before and after the spawning 
season) ; these were all respectively known by their hues and mottlings, 
and éach kind and variety bore its proper distinctive name. More than 
once, in my early travelling, has some kind Maori with me (either before 
or behind, in the long straggling single file), gathered a flowering branch of 
Solanum aviculare, and of Wahlenbergia gracilis, and of W. sawicola, and kept 
it for me; because his quick eye had noticed the change of colour in their 
flowers, from blue, and from lilac to white; which change in those two 
genera is not unfrequently the case: and not unfrequently was my attention 
loudly called to a large spider (of the species so very common and un- 
pleasant in the open shrubby wilderness) whose main colouring and 
markings were differeiit from others. Sometimes, also, in our journeying, 
we should find a few large stray tail or wing feathers (generally one-at a 
time), all more or less of a common brown colour, but with = light 
*«« Huer,” in Cornwall, on the Pee seine-fishery ; and done by the old Maoris, = 
signs, much as it is still practised there. 
+ See ‘“ Trans. N.Z. toed. ” Vol. XIIL,, p. 44, for an instance. 
