CARNIVORA 65 



Common Shepherds' Cur, or Count Buffon's chien de berger. They were of 

 different colours, some quite black, and others perfectly white. The food 

 which these dogs receive is fish, or the same as their masters live on, who 

 afterwards eat their flesh and employ the fur in various ornaments and 

 dresses." Later on in the same journal he says : " The ofBcers had ordered 

 their black dog to be killed, and sent to the captain one half of it; this 

 day (9th June) therefore we dined for the first time on a leg of it roasted, 

 which tasted so exactly like mutton that it was absolutely undistinguish- 



able In New Zealand, and in the tropical isles of the South Sea, the 



dogs are the most stupid, dull animals imaginable, and do not seem to 

 have the least advantage in point of sagacity over our sheep. In the former 

 country they are fed upon fish, in the latter on vegetables." 



Bellingshausen, who visited New Zealand in 1820, says: "We saw 

 no quadrupeds except dogs of a small species. Captain Lazarew 

 bought a couple. They are rather small, have a woolly tail, erect ears, 

 a large mouth and short legs." 



DiefFenbach, writing nearly seventy years after Cook's visit, re- 

 marks that: 



the native dog was formerly considered a dainty, and great numbers of 

 them were eaten; but the breed having undergone an almost complete 

 mixture with the European, their use as an article of food has been dis- 

 continued, as the European dogs are said by the natives to be perfectly 

 unpalatable. The New Zealand dog is different from the Austrahan dingo ; 

 the latter resembles in size and shape the wolf while the former rather 

 resembles the jackal; its colour is reddish-brown, its ears long and straight. 



The Rev. R. Taylor says: "The New Zealand dog was small 

 and long-haired, of a dirty white or yellow colour, with a bushy 

 tail; this the natives state they brought with them when they first 

 came to these islands." Then he adds : " it is not improbable, however, 

 that they found another kind already in the country, brought by the 

 older Melanesian race, vnth long white hair and black tail; it is said 

 to have been very quiet and docile." 



S. Percy Smith saw several Maori dogs in a native village at 

 Warea, near Cape Egmont, in 1852. They were long-bodied, fox- 

 eared, sharp-nosed, long-haired, bushy-tailed, yellowish-brown, and 

 dark — almost to black — ^in colour. They stood about 18 inches high. 

 He branded them as curs. They were evidently lazy, stupid brutes, 

 which never became wild. 



Mr Elsdon Best writes to Mr Drummond {Lyttelton Times, nth 

 January, 1913): 



Some old Maoris of the East Coast district assert that before Captain 

 Cook's visit there were two distinct breeds of dogs in New Zealand. One 

 was a large dog, with long hair, and lop ears ; the other a small dog with 

 erect ears. The first was brought, they say, from Raiatea. This variety was 



