Sydney Porter-—Notes on New Zealand Birds



35



the “ mutton birders ” who arrive about the first week in April,

and immediately take samples of the birds. The Maoris can

usually tell whether the birds are ready by the presence of down

adhering to the roots at the entrance of the nesting hole. This means

that the young one is getting past the downy stage and is coming to

the entrance of the burrow each night to shake the down from the

plumage. Some of the “ mutton birders ” possess dogs who scent

the birds which are then dug out. Usually the depth of the tunnel

is tested by a long stick and an entrance is dug from above where the

young one is judged to be. The birds are killed by hitting them with

the fist on the back of the skull until it is broken. A heap of birds

are collected and stripped of their body feathers, great heaps of downy

feathers in the bush denoting where the men have been working.


The work is started at 7 a.m. and is continued until 2 p.m., when

each person has collected from sixty to seventy birds, which are then

tied into bundles of ten. Arriving at the hut or place where the work

is done, the birds are dipped into boiling water and the remaining down

plucked off. They are then hung up in bundles and allowed to stiffen,

this is because the birds are so tremendously fat that it is necessary

for them to harden before they can be dealt with. After hanging for

two or three days, the Petrels are taken down, the head, wings, and

tail cut off, the body split out, and the inside taken out. The birds,

or rather what is left of them, are then packed flat into barrels, each

layer being salted. These are then left for two or three days, after

which they are taken out and packed with salt into bags very ingeniously

made out of the stems of a giant kelp, a species of seaweed, which

attains a gigantic size in the seas in the far south. When each bag

is full it contains from 30 to 100 birds, according to the size.


These bags when full resemble great transparent yellowish bladders.

Birds which are small or in poor condition are boiled in their own fat

and also put into the kelp bags. When the sacks, which are pear-

shaped, are full, they are covered with Totera bark and the base is

then placed in a Maori “ kit ” or bag of woven flax. The birds are

now ready for the market and will last, preserved in this way, for

over twelve months. The price varies from 9 d. downwards. Now 5 \d.

is the price paid per bird to the “ mutton birders ”.



