68 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



hen, the Httle blue penguin* (Eudyptula, 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 Teucridimn ; 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 Eoyal 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 tlmn 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 

 EngHsh 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. 



