164 POPULATION OF NEW ZEALAND. 
of Islands, has evidently appeared to be on the 
decline. The population of the whole Northern 
Island may, perhaps, be taken at one hundred 
and sixty thousand ; though, possibly, there may 
be more. Twenty-eight thousand would, per- 
haps, be the utmost extent of numbers, from the 
Bay (taking in all tribes connected with it) down 
to the North Cape. This we calculate from 
allowing that there is one fighting-man in every 
four of the natives ; — a large proportion, but to 
be accounted for by the circumstances, that the 
Chiefs take many wives, and that many children 
perish : considered as families, therefore, they are 
fai’ fi’om being populous. We know the total 
number of fighting-men in the Northern Island 
to be about forty thousand ; and the number in 
the neighbourhood of the Bay and northward, to 
be about seven thousand. What number there 
may be residing on the Southern Island, we have 
liitherto had no means of ascertaining ; but it is 
believed that the population there is very small, 
and thinly scattered over an immense tract of 
country. 
