60 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
kinds or intensities of which they preferred for seed. They knew at sight 
the difference in the colour of blood recently and some time shed ; and, also, 
from the hue of the rich purple juice of the fruit of the twtw shrub, (when 
hospitably set before them in open calabashes in travelling in the summer 
season), they perceived at a glance whether it was freshly made (when it was 
highly esteemed), or whether it had stood a day or two; and they accurately 
determined the age of severe bruises on the human body from the difference 
in their colour. From a great distance off they knew what was burning 
by the colour of its smoke, whether arising from dry or green fuel, whether 
from swamp, or plain, or forest vegetation ; and they also knew from the 
colour of soot what it had been obtained from:—this last was formerly a 
matter of great importance to them in the business of tattooing. 
Of colours of this class artificially produced were the dark-red dyes of 
various shades obtained from the bark of the tanekaha (and toatoa) tree 
( Phyllocladus trichomanoides ), used in dyeing yarns for the decorated borders 
of their best flax garments, and in staining their superior furniture, walking- 
sticks, ete., etc. 
(7.) 
Of their black colours. 
Of all their artificial colours, black was the one which they knew how to 
make and impart to perfection. This colour they had naturally around 
them,—in the mineral, the vegetable and the animal kingdoms; in the first 
in coal, and in the black oxide of manganese, and in many species of rocks, 
as in obsidian and basalt; in vegetables in the common Fungi of the 
forest,—as Antennaria, Capnodum, ete., which sometimes completely covers 
the trunk of a large tree, and gave rise to strange tales and fancies; and 
in the animal kingdom, in the plumage of some birds,—as of the tutti, the 
tieke, the huia, the torea, the kawau, and the back of the pukeko ; in the 
flesh of the shell-fish paua, and of the rori; and in the black internal skin 
(lining mouth and abdomen) of several fishes,—as the mackerel, herring, 
mullet, ete. 
In their own peculiar artificial dyes of black, of various shades of inten- 
sity, used for dyeing garments, ete., they have never been surpassed; some 
of their black dyes being strikingly deep, pure, brilliant, and lasting. All 
their earlier European visitors were astonished at the intensity of this 
colour used as adye among them. For dyeing black their flax threads 
yarns and garments, dressed and undressed, and also their whole big 
garments (thick cloaks) made of the fibres of the toii (Cordyline indivisa), 
they generally used (as is now well-known) the barks of two closely allied 
trees, hinau and pokaka (Eleocarpus dentatus, and E. hookerianus), with @ 
mordaunt composed of aluminous ¢lay ; they also used the bark of the 
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