68 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
hen, the little blue penguin* (Fudyptula, sp.), and the kingfisher ; in the 
mackerel, in a Medusa (common on the sandy sea-shores in summer) and 
in a few marine shells both uni- and bi-valve ; and in two or three incon- 
spicuous flowers of small plants, as Wahlenbergia and Teucridium ; Colensoa 
also bears a blue flower, which is by far the largest of them all, but it is 
very local and scarce, being only found in a few spots between Whangaroa 
and the North Cape. Sometimes, though rarely, a chief would wear a 
portion of the blue plumage of the swamp hen dangling in his ear as an 
ornament, 
I should also observe, that although (as I have shown) the old Maoris 
had but little of blue colours of their own which they could use, yet on their 
early becoming acquainted with Europeans—whether resident among them 
as missionaries, or merely as visitors in the numerous ships which visited 
their shores,—no colour was better known to them in all its shades than 
this one of blue. In the ships and vessels—both of the Royal Navy and 
merchant line—there were the blue jackets, blue shirts, blue trousers, and 
blue caps! while with the Mission from the beginning, blue was the 
common and, indeed, almost the only colour used in the female and infant 
schools, and in the Mission houses and premises, by the numerous female 
domestics,—all alike were clad in blue, both on Sundays and on week-days. 
‘Navy-blue” cotton prints (dark blue with minute white dots) for the 
children, and blue linen for the women, and blue woollen shirts, and blue- 
striped cotton shirts (and sometimes blue caps) for the men; and after- 
wards (say 40-45 years ago), when the American whalers largely and 
frequently visited New Zealand (Bay of Islands), they brought their wares 
for trade, and many useful lots were from time to time purchased from them 
for the general use of the Mission; and among those goods were the twilled 
cotton shirt with a much wider blue stripe, and the famed American blue 
twilled cotton; this last was much stouter and stronger than the thin 
‘‘navy-blue’’ cotton print of English manufacture (being made among the 
cotton-growing plantations, and, I believe, originally, for the use of the 
coloured slaves there), and was also much warmer than both that and the 
English blue linen, and more easily worked than this latter, apart from its 
being very much cheaper; therefore, this new blue article also got largely 
into use. Its colour, however, was very different from that of the “‘ Navy 
blue” print, of the dark blue linen, and of the blue woollen shirts, being 
* In 1836, while residing at Paihia, Bay of Islands, I had a living specimen of the 
blue penguin, which I kept alive for some time in my garden. I made it a little skin 
jacket, with a brass ring in the back, and to this I frequently tied a long fishing-line and 
let the bird go out to aea, where it dived about and enjoyed itself. One day it bit the line 
in two, and so got off. It was a wonderful pet with the Maoris. 
