28 Bird-Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
them, pursuing and killing; and the fleet sparrow-hawk darted 
in and out among the fugitives, tearing and ripping; while the 
owl, who could not fly by day, encouraged, by hooting derisively 
‘Thou art brave! thou art victor!’ (‘Toa hoe! toa hoe!’) 
and the big parrot screamed, 'Remember! remember! Be you 
ever remembering your thrashing’ (‘Kia iro! Ida iro hoe!’) 
"In that great battle, those two birds, the titi (petrel 
mutton-bird), and the taiko (a bird apparently known only bv 
name) were made prisoners by the river-birds; and hence it is 
that these two birds always lay their eggs and rear their young- 
in the woods among the land-birds.” 
The Maori declares that his haka, the war dance, was learnt 
from the fantail; that is, a characteristic part of the dance, the 
quick jump from side to side with brandishing of weapon. 
Potts noted (PO, p. 156) that the fantail, when feeding its 
young, does not visit the nest with each insect captured, but is 
able to keep many insects in the mouth at one time; nor does 
this interfere with its catching others, or with its uttering the 
twittering notes. I saw a bird catch a daddy-long-legs, and 
swallow it, wings and all; and the bird looked most ludicrous 
when the body had disappeared and the legs still protruded like 
feeleis from the side of the gape;—as ludicrous as the wriggling 
legs of Maui must have looked to the fantail. —- 
1 01 during his last exploit, his attempt to overcome the 
Woman of Night, the Mother of Death, Maui chose as his com¬ 
panions the small birds of the forest, and these accompanied 
him to the darkness of the west, vdiere lay the dread woman 
asleep. Maui admonished the birds as they neared the woman; 
they must make no sound, or they 'would awaken her before his 
pm pose was accomplished. The birds w r ere silent. Maui stooped, 
so that he might creep through her, and win for mankind life,— 
oi c Hath. He entered the Woman of Night, as far as his 
shoulders, as far as his middle. Then it was that the lively 
fantail, no longer seeing the earnest features of Maui, but seeing 
only the wriggling limbs as he strove to pierce the darkness, 
bioke the stillness and burst into tiny chattering laughter. The 
