66 MAMMALIA 



bred solely for food and clothing; it was useless for hunting. The long hair 

 covered the body as low as its knees, and there was a natural parting along 

 the top of the back. The small dog was also introduced from Polynesia, 

 and was useful for hunting the kiwi, weka and parera (grey duck). 



The so-called "Maori" dogs seen in the fifties and sixties he be- 

 lieves were crosses. As to the word "pero-pero," he says that whether 

 it was Spanish in origin, or not, it is not improbable that Spanish 

 vessels reached these shores before Cook's visit. 



For centuries the Spaniards concealed the results of their voyages very 

 carefully. In the short accounts of their early voyages, the positions of 

 the islands discovered by them were vague and unsatisfactory. The voyage 

 made by Juan Fernandez westward from Chili, and then southward to a 

 land inhabited by white people who made "good woven cloth," may point 

 to a visit to New Zealand's shores. The natives of the more northern 

 islands, unUke the Maoris, did not wear woven material, but used bark 

 cloth, and "white people" might refer to the Maoris, as the Spanish 

 voyagers called all true Polynesians white. 



H. J. Fletcher in a late issue of the Journal of the Polynesian 

 Society states that the Maori dog was known at the Matapihi Station, 

 Taupo, as late as 1896. The shepherds employed on the station shot a 

 number of dogs, long-haired, bushy-tailed, and of a dirty white colour. 



Elsdon Best (April, 1913) gives some statements about the Maori 

 dog as follows : 



(i) Captain Mair says that in his youth he saw these dogs trained 

 to hunt by themselves through the kumara plantations for the large 

 caterpillars of the Sphinx convolvuli. They were trained to put their 

 noses under the trailing shoots of the vines and to turn the shoots 

 over, in order to expose any caterpillars that might be present. If 

 they succeeded in finding any they devoured them. If the dogs were 

 not watched they ate pieces out of the pumpkins. 



(2) Savage, in Some Account of New Zealand, published in 1807, 

 says: 



as far as I can learn, the natives have no larger animal than the dog, which 

 is a native here, usually black and white, with sharp, pricked-up ears, the 

 hair rather long, and in figure resembUng the animal we call a foxhound. 



(3) Shortland (in 1856) says: 



The natives wore cloaks made from the skins of dogs before Captain 

 Cook's time, and their manner of fabricating such cloaks is particularly 

 ingenious. Moreover, the native breed of dogs still exists in New Zealand, 

 though, perhaps, seldom in its original purity, and is preserved in some 

 places for the sake of its skin. In appearance it is very unlike the European 

 breeds. Its body is long, legs short, head sharp, tail long, straight and 

 bushy. The hair is thick, straight, and tolerably long, varying in colour 

 from white to brown, but it is not spotted. 



