Heaphy. — On Port Nicholson and the Natives in 1839. 33 



rous shore-parties watched throughout the winter months for whales that, 

 coming inshore during tlie breeding season, were entangled or swept by the 

 tide into the bays, where they could be attacked with advantage, and when 

 killed, towed, with the aid of the flood or ebb tide, alongside the ship or 

 under sheers of the shore establishment. At Port Nicholson heads, the 

 tide was not so strong as to draw in the " fish," as they were termed, and 

 as a consequence the place was unfrequented, and remained with its people 

 in a more primitive condition than any of the surrounding harbours. 



The forest Avas more undisturbed. Along the eastern shore, from the 

 mouth of the Hutt Eiver to outside of Ward Island, the forest was uninter- 

 rupted, and the trees overhung the water, giving shelter to great numbers 

 of wild fowl. 



About Kaiwhara, Ngahauranga, and the Korokoro, the earthquakes had 

 not then raised the coast, and caused the beach, now occupied by the 

 railway, to appear, and there, also, the trees overhung the water, leaving 

 only at the ebb of the tide a space sufficient for a pathway. 



The indigenous birds had been entirely unmolested, save when the 

 Maori snared them in his furtive and noiseless manner. I remember, 

 especially, the enormous number of waterfowl frequenting the shallows at 

 the mouth of the Hutt Eiver. Cormorants, ducks, teal, oyster-catchers, 

 plovers, sand-pipers, curlew, and red-legged waders, were there in pairs, 

 detachments, and masses, and so tame that it was slaughter, rather than 

 sport, to shoot them. 



At the beach at the head of Evans Bay, there were, beside ordinary 

 waterfowl, flocks of Paradise ducks (Casarca variegata). In the low fern 

 and sandy shores of Island and Lyall Bays the indigenous quail, now 

 disappeared, would rise almost at one's foot with its shrill, startling whistle, 

 while along the rocks the slate-coloured cranes (Ardea sacra), two and two, 

 were to be seen making erratic darts after shrimps, or patiently waiting for 

 a passing fish. 



The forest was then teeming with birds. Of twelve or fom-teen species 

 of small birds that were then to be seen in every wood, only the tui, the 

 fly-catcher, and the wren, with the sand-lark, in the open, are now common, 

 while the robin, the bell-bird, the titmouse, the thrush, the popokatea, the 

 tiraweke, and the riroriro, are rarely seen or have entirely passed away. 



Of the larger birds, the kokako, or crow, the rail, pukeko, pigeon, kaka, 

 and huia, were numerous in their respective localities or feeding-grounds. 

 Of a night might be heard tbe booming, or " di'um," of the bittern ( Botau- 

 rus pceciloptilusj. The weka (Ocydromus earli), now common aboiit the Hutt 

 Valley, was then so scarce, that for more than three months our naturalist 



3 



