484 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Further, and lastly, Mr. Stack says (same page), — " Most persons have 

 had an opportunity of observing the incongruous colours in which a Maori 

 belle arrays herself when seeking to attract admiration in our streets. Her 

 mode of adornment proves that her sense of colour is still very defective. 

 She knows each colour by name * but she has an imperfect mental concep- 

 tion of it, and therefore cannot realize what a fright she makes herself by 

 wearing colours that will not harmonize." Mr. Stack might more justly 

 have applied these words to a fashionably dressed European female, such as 

 I not unfrequently meet with here in Napier. Take out the word Maori and 

 insert European or Colo7iial^a,nd. the sentence is complete. Such, almost 

 word for word, I have last year frequently seen in our more respectable 

 papers, English and Colonial, when writing on the horried deformities of 

 the fashionable and bizarre female dress of the day. In my estimation, the 

 Maori woman of to-day has been so far vitiated and debased in taste as to 

 run after and adopt those ultra European fashions. 



I have thought it necessary thus freely to criticize Mr. Stack's paper in the 

 interests of our English and European philological and physiological writers 

 (as Max MilUer, Herbert Spencer, Darwin, Tylor, Lubbock, etc.), who, in 

 the prosecution of their studies and researches, naturally look to such a 

 volume as our New Zealand Institute " Transactions" for correct informa- 

 tion re the Maoris : and to allow such erroneous notions and statements, 

 however innocently made, to remain unchecked, would never do. 



I wish to add, that I do not beheve that Mr. Stack has erred ivilfully ; 

 and, further, that if, even now, he were to travel leisurely among the Maoris 

 in the interior of the North Island, he would himself soon discover many of 

 his errors, and abandon them. 



* I suppose that some of those colours of dress, she is said now to know by name, are 

 such as the following, e.g. : — ■ 



plum-colour rose-colour 



lavender-colour orange-colour 



lemon-colour claret-colour 



sage-green-colour pea-green-colour 



fawn-colom" mouse-colour 



dove-colour salmon-colour 



etc., etc., etc. 



Now where is the very great difference in expression, or rather, say, the superiority, of 

 these of the Europeans over those of the Maoris, by whom similar natural objects having 

 the exact shade of hue required were also used comparatively ? 



