152 Transactions. 
pohutukawa ; the water is slightly brackish, and very limited in quantity. 
The Maoris have a tradition that if anyone were to lie down at length and 
drink from the pool the waters would straightway dry up. An old chief who 
accompanied us to point out the best fishing grounds charged each member of 
the party to be careful and dip the water. It was with much pleasure that I 
listened here to the sweet note of the koromako (Anthornis melanura). I have 
heard it occasionally on Whale Island, about five miles from Rurima. The 
Maoris think that it is the sole survivor of the race and that it flies backwards 
and forwards between the islands. 
The other islet, Moutoki, lies about half-a-mile to the north-east. It is 
perhaps 150 yards in length by 50 in breadth. It is on a cone-like hummock 
rising from its centre that the tuatara (Sphenodon punctatum) is found ; the 
area of this cone is not more than half an acre, and yet the tuatara exists and 
has existed for ages in this limited preserve. Tradition says that they were 
plentiful on Whale Island, but does not account in a satisfactory manner for 
their extinction. If, as the Maoris aver, their ancestors ate all kinds of 
lizards, how is it that they are so frightened of them? In a few minutes we 
caught four tuataras (the largest of which I forwarded to Mr. Kirk) ; they 
were found basking on the rocks and in holes in the loose soil. Whether 
these holes were the burrows of sea birds or had been scraped by the lizards I 
could not tell. In one instance we found a tuatara and a young penguin in 
the same burrow. The Maoris, as a rule, have a perfect horror of lizards, and 
associate them with death or disaster, but a couple of Urewera lads, who 
formed part of my crew, proved superior to superstitious influences, and pulled 
them out bravely, receiving, however, sundry sharp nips for their temerity. 
It is believed by some that the tuatara feeds for a portion of the year at least 
on the eggs of sea birds, but I could never coax one to eat an egg. 
From an examination of their excreta I am of opinion that their food 
consists of insects, more particularly a shining black beetle, about half-an-inch 
in length, with a longish neck, small head, and fluted clytra ; it is commonly 
found under stones and old wood. On the summit and sides of the cone Í 
noticed the pohutukawa, one or two pittosporads, the common fern, some 
aspleniums, and a well-known grass; about the base there is a thick growth 
of a dwarfed coprosma (C. lucida in all probability), This part of the islet 
swarms with a small, dark, mottled brown lizard, half-a-dozen of them under 
every stone or bit of drift-wood. As far as I could discover, they never mix 
with their larger brethren on the cone. While on this subject, I may mention ' 
the existence of a large forest lizard, called by the Maoris kaweau. In 1870 
an Urewera chief killed one under the loose bark of a dead rata, in the 
Waimana valley ; he described it to me as being about two feet long, and as 
thick as a man’s wrist ; colour brown, striped longitudinally with dull red. 
