238 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND cuap. x 
those that live by prey regard little whether what they 
take is of their own or any other species. But any one who 
considers the admirable chain of nature, in which man, 
alone endowed with reason, justly claims the highest rank, 
and in which the half-reasoning elephant, the sagacious 
dog, the architect beaver, etc., in whom instinct so nearly 
resembles reason as to have been mistaken for it by men of 
no mean capacities, are placed next; from these descending 
through the less informed quadrupeds and birds to the 
fish and insects, who seem, besides the instinct of fear which 
is given them for self-preservation, to be moved only by the 
stings of hunger to eat, and those of lust to propagate their 
species, which, when born, are left entirely to their own 
care; and at last by the medium of the oysters, etc., which 
not being able to move, but as tossed about by the waves, 
must in themselves be furnished with both sexes, that the 
species may be continued; shading itself away into the 
vegetable kingdom, for the preservation of whom neither 
sensation nor instinct is wanted ; whoever considers this, I 
say, will easily see that no conclusion in favour of such a 
practice can be drawn from the actions of a race of beings 
placed so infinitely below us in the order of nature. 
But to return to my subject. Simple as their food is, 
their cookery so far as I saw is as simple: a few stones 
heated and laid in a hole, with the meat laid upon them and 
covered with hay, seems to be the most difficult part of it. 
Fish and birds they generally broil, or rather toast, spiking 
them upon a long skewer, the bottom of which is fixed 
under a stone, another stone being put under the fore 
part of the skewer, which is raised or lowered by moving the 
second stone as circumstances may require. The fern 
roots are laid upon the open fire until they are thoroughly 
hot and their bark burnt to a coal; they are then beaten 
with a wooden hammer over a stone, which causes all the 
bark to fly off, and leaves the inside, consisting of a small 
proportion of a glutinous pulp mixed with many fibres, 
which they generally spit out, after having sucked each 
mouthful a long time. Strange and unheard of as it must 
