CoLENSO. — Xotes on the ancient Dog of the New Zealanders, 139 



April, wliicli (in part) is also worth copying. He s^js : — " These people 

 also are fond of dog's-flesh, and reckon it delicious food, which we discovered 

 by then- bringing the leg of a dog roasted to sell. Mr. Banks ate a piece of 

 it and admh-ed it much. He went out immediately and bought one and 

 gave it to some Indians to kill and dress it in their manner, which they 

 did accordingly. * * At night it was served uj) for suxjper, I ate a 

 little of it, it had the taste of coarse beef, and a strong disagreeable smell ; 

 but Captain Cook, Mr. Banks, and Dr. Solander commended it highly, 

 saying it was the sweetest meat they had ever tasted, but the rest of our 

 people could not be prevailed on to eat any of it. We have invented a new 

 dish, which is as much disliked by the natives as any of theirs is by us. 

 Here is a species of rats, of which there are great numbers in this island. 

 We caught some of them and had them fried. Most of the gentlemen in 

 the bell-tent ate of them, and commended them much, and some of the 

 inferior officers ate them in a morning for breakfast." And, subsequently, 

 on thek passage thence to New Zealand, we have also this entry in his 

 Journal : — " On the 27th August we killed a dog, and dressed him, which 

 we brought from Ulietea (Eaiatea) : he was excessively fat, although he had 

 eaten nothing while he had been on board"* (nearly twenty days). 



On shore at Tolago Bay, Cook and his party first saw the New Zealand 

 dog. Cook says : — " No tame animals were seen among the natives except 

 dogs, which were very small and ugly." And, again, on leaving Tolago, 

 he says: — "We saw no four-footed animals, nor the appearance of any, 

 either tame or wild, except dogs and rats, and these were very scarce ; the 

 people eat the dogs like our friends at Tahiti." 



Parkinson's entry in his Journal at Tolago respecting the dog is : — " Of 

 quadrupeds we saw no other than dogs, which were like those on the island 

 of Tahiti, and of them but a few." Another entry of his in his Journal 

 respecting a dog, made in March, on leaving the south coasts of New 

 Zealand (on the day they discovered those dangerous shoals caUed the 

 " Tra^Ds "), is also worthy of notice. Parkinson says: — "This day the 

 weather was more moderate than it had been for many days, and being one of 

 the inferior officers' birthday, it was celebrated by a peculiar kind of festival ; 

 a dog was killed that had been bred on board ; the hind-quarters were 

 roasted, and a pye was made of the fore-quarters, into the crust of which 

 they put the fat; and of the viscera they made a haggis!" (We must 

 remember that Parkinson was a Scotchman). 



From George Forster (who, with his father, J. E. Forster, accompanied 

 Cook on his second voyage), we gain good information respecting the New 

 Zealand dog. He first saw them in Queen Charlotte Bound, before their 



* S. Parkinson's Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, pp. 20, 81, 



