134 
ZOOLOGY; 
CHAPTER Y. 
ZOOLOGY. 
Although an account of the fauna of New Zealand is not likely 
to excite in the reader the same emotions which are created by 
the perusal of adventures in other wild regions of the world, 
the observations on zoology which I was able to collect during 
my journey may nevertheless he found not altogether devoid 
of interest. 
The fact that no poisonous or ferocious animals exist, so that 
the traveller can lie down both during the day and night without 
the slightest fear in this respect, added to its fine climate, justi¬ 
fies me in stating that this country is eminently suited to the 
European settler. Often during the long winter nights, whilst 
sitting round our camp fire, and during the day, whilst wading 
through swamps and rivers, and scrambling through forest and 
jungle, we felt great comfort in the knowledge that we had 
nothing to fear either from insidious snakes coiled beneath our 
feet, or from ferocious animals in ambush, ready to make their 
deadly spring. My observations will therefore be of a very 
peaceful nature; and I must hope that in depicting the quiet life 
of the harmless inhabitants of the wild regions through which I 
passed, I shall he able to invest with some degree of interest the 
solitude of its primeval plains and forests. 
Of the Mammalia I have very little to say, because, with the 
exception of those belonging to the family Phocidse, there is 
scarcely anything to observe. I had, in fact, no opportunity, 
whilst travelling round the coast, of seeing any of these animals ; 
but Mr. John Rochf'ort, who preceded me by a few weeks, killed 
a sea bear (Ursina marina), seven feet long, which, with its female, ■ 
was found near Te-ana-o-Matuku, lying amongst huge masses of 
rock, which can only be reached from the shore at low water 
spring tides. Seals, as the natives assured me, have almost de¬ 
serted the coast, and it is but rarely that they are met with, 
although at one time they were very numerous in its more rocky 
parts. 
In several works I have seen allusion made to a quadruped sup¬ 
posed to exist in the lakes of this island, and which, from descrip- 
