100 Bird-Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
the bird looks as though prepared to leap, one more glance 
and it is away climbing some moss-clothed trunk, or picking 
its food from beneath the flakes and ragged strips of bark that 
hang from the brown-stemmed fuchsia tree. It must be an 
early breeder. On the Teremakau we have seen the young, 
almost of adult size, in the first week of December.’’ 
Of the five Maori names recorded (WJ, p. 198) the one most 
commonly used is tieke. 
In Maori lore the bird was supposed to be a guardian of 
the ancient treasures of the Maori; and if the name can be 
construed to mean “a guardian,” it might rather be on this 
account than because it accompanies flocks of white-heads as 
before mentioned. But the name tieke was probably taken 
from the call of the bird; for there is an old song used for 
hauling a canoe over difficult places, which begins: 
[One Voice.] 
The kiwi cries 
The moho cries 
The tieke cries 
[All.] 
Kiwi (a short sharp pull) 
Moho 
Tieke 
Fork it out, fork it out (A long sus¬ 
tained pull) 
If a war-party should hear the cry of a tieke to the right of 
their path, it would be counted an omen of victory; but if to 
the left an omen of evil. The bird appears in the story of Maui 
snaring the sun, which exploit is related under the crow. 
It is mentioned in two proverbs: Ka mahi koe te whare o te 
tieke (GK, p. 37), “You are building a house for the tieke 
(saddle-back),”—said to one making a mat of dry kiekie leaves, 
because the tieke often built its nest in a tuft of kiekie; and 
Me te mea i houlioua e te tieke (GK, p. 71), “Full of holes, as 
a rotten piece of wood pecked full of holes by the tieke. ’ 7 
