AND FISHES OF NEW ZEALAND. 7l 
with red and yellow ; others are brown, yellow, 
and purple ; but all nearly white under the belly. 
The natives regard this harmless and insignificant 
animal superstitiously, as being the form which 
they suppose the evil spirit assumes, when he 
enters a person, in order to destroy him. On this 
account many of them are fearful when they see a 
lizard, and are particularly careful not to do it an 
injury. This feeling is, however, confined to the 
older and more superstitious natives in the land. 
We have a rich supply of excellent salt-water 
fish; but nothing more than eels in any of the 
fresh-water streams or lakes in New Zealand. 
Those [most plentiful, and of greatest note, are, 
soles, mackarel, cod-fish, a species of salmon, 
whiting, snapper, mullet, bream, skate, gurnards, 
and a few smaller kinds, some not near so large as 
a sprat; with an abundance of crayfish, oysters, 
shrimps, prawns, muscles, and cockles. An im- 
mensely large muscle, measuring from eleven to 
thirteen inches, is found in great abundance at 
Kaipara, a harbour on the western coast ; and 
some few of this fish are picked up in the Bay of 
Islands. These inhabitants of the deep form a 
never-failing resource for the supply of native 
food : but fishing is now not much regarded, ex- 
cept in the mackarel-season, when several tribes 
go together to the little creeks where these fish 
frequent, and always succeed in capturing some 
hundreds of thousands before they return ; the 
