Oct. is, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
631 
THE MAORI HEN. 
Continued from page 613. 
surely an advance on the old method of decid¬ 
ing between rivals, for science has a better show, 
and there is less cruelty, yet the desired effect 
is attained. 
Chicken can dance beautifully when he likes, 
which is very seldom. He waves his wings, 
dives his head, swings it to and fro, and then, 
with a flap, a jump and another wave of the 
wings he blinks his eyes as if he forgot the 
rest. Yet he has the right idea and knows per¬ 
fectly well what is graceful in motion. He has 
also some idea of “showing off,” his beauty 
spots being the bared primaries, which he shows 
to the best advantage by stretching his wings 
forward toward the ground, at the same time 
making himself tall and full-breasted, but the 
humor takes him just as seldom as the dancing. 
I found their nest about 200 yards away, in 
the sunniest place they could find, on a little 
hill. It is sheltered from the rain by the droop¬ 
ing flax leaves, is deep and warm, and lined with 
frayed and dead flax. Every evening she used 
to go up there and call for him, and if down 
at the house he would answer and go away at 
once. They were always clucking and croaking 
about there, but I could never find any eggs in it. 
On the 24th of August, in the early morning, 
Chicken marched into the house and craned his 
neck at my hands with unusual eagerness. I 
thought he must be very hungry, and I gave him 
some food, which, contrary to his usual custom, 
he took up and carried away, trotting along the 
beach with his neck stretched out as if he was 
in a great hurry. After breakfast, when work¬ 
ing at our big boatshed, we noticed him passing 
several times with some tiny grub or worm in 
his bill. I thought he must be feeding his mate 
while hatching, and went away to see the nest, 
but it was empty and cold. Yet all that day he 
was running back and forward until evening, 
when his gait gave the idea that he was tired 
out with so many journeys.. Late in the evening 
he stayed away, and his mate came up to the 
house for food. Next morning when he came I 
went away along his track, and Burt gave him 
something, which he promptly brought along, but 
instead of going to the nest he turned away in 
the bush, and I had to follow his beaten track 
until I heard him clucking, and soon saw him 
under the bushes breaking up the food and call¬ 
ing his mate to feast. I saw her on a new nest, 
but fearing she might forsake that also I came 
away and left them. 
A day or two later, when both were at the 
house, I went away to see the eggs, but the nest 
was empty—no eggs and no young ones. “All 
a hoax,” said I, “or else the rats have eaten 
them.” But next day, when coming home, we 
met them near the beach, and they scolded and 
threatened the dogs, so that I knew they had 
chickens, but I had to wait a long time before 
the old ones got confidence enough to call out 
of their hiding three tiny little black chickens, 
which were just able to stagger about, yet with 
sense enough to scramble under cover when the 
old ones told them to do so. They gradually 
brought them nearer the house until they occu¬ 
pied a sheltered corner, where the little ones re¬ 
mained while the parents went away for food. 
They are the very best of nurses. The male in 
particular is never tired of running here and 
there and bringing home something. They sel¬ 
dom succeed in getting more than enough, be¬ 
cause when we give them too much they cram 
the little ones until they cannot eat another 
scrap, and then the old ones become solicitous 
and hold up food to them with a crooning, piti¬ 
ful note, as if they feared the little gluttons were 
going to die because they could not eat. 
On a wet day the parents look miserable run¬ 
ning about in the wet, but the little ones will be 
stowed away in some cosy nook, and never think 
of following the old ones without a great deal 
of calling and coaxing. In this matter they ap¬ 
pear quite intellectual compared with other fowl, 
but they may have learned the idea before the 
advent of rats, and retained part of it for more 
than a hundred generations after its utility had 
become doubtful. That is in theory. In prac¬ 
tice there are as many wekas as can get a de¬ 
cent living, many of them being poor and insuffi¬ 
ciently fed, for which they can thank the rats. 
Recently I left a penguin’s egg near a rat hole, 
and when I returned ten minutes later the egg 
was gone. The rats are numerous and fierce, 
and why they have not eaten the little chickens 
when both parents are away I cannot under¬ 
stand, especially when they are so often in holes 
that would just suit the rats. 
The staple food of the wekas appears to be 
sand fleas, which are here in plenty, not only on 
the beaches, but all through the bush, under the 
dead leaves and rubbish, and they are never tired 
raking over this and pulling about the sea weed 
in search of them. They also pull about the 
dead grass- and turn over every chip in search 
of other things, but it is all done with the beak 
—they are not such fools as to go kicking things 
all over the place like common fowls. The sand 
fleas are lively, and can make long jumps, so 
that while a rooster would be turning round to 
look for them,'they would have all jumped away. 
Of course there are hosts of other insects, in¬ 
cluding cockroaches in plenty and monster earth¬ 
worms, which they may catch at night, for they 
are often out on mild nights and always active 
late in the evening. Yet they seem to prefer the 
scraps from our table to anything they have on 
their own, and soon learn to eat everything we 
have. They may have acquired their taste for 
fish by finding some stranded on the beach, but 
where they learned to eat bread and butter is 
a mystery, for they take to it like a robin. There' 
is a little plant with a white bulb like a marble, 
which they know well, and like to eat, but it is 
watery and quite tasteless. 
I threw my hat at one of them one day for 
being in some mischief, and it is quite comical 
how long and how well he remembers it, for 
whenever I take my hat off now he is under 
cover like a flash. And again a young one came 
to us at the clearing, and after dinner we brought 
it some food, and in that one lesson it learned 
the motion of the hand in throwing the food, so 
that some days after when I pretended to throw 
it something, it ran toward me and looked for 
it on the ground. Thus they appear to be strik¬ 
ingly sensible, because they learn at once by ex¬ 
perience, and if every living thing did that, there 
would be hardly any fools after a few years’ 
experience. 
I found Scrag’s nest on the ~th of September 
with two eggs in it, but they laid another after 
that and brought out the chickens on the 8th of 
October, so that the period of incubation was 
about twenty-seven days. They took turns at 
hatching, for when I saw the hen on the beach 
I found the male on the nest, and vice versa, 
and in this they show their sense also, for it is 
easy for two compared with one doing it all, as 
in' the case of the kiwi and kakapo. 
In July, when out at the clearing, I heard a 
woodhen screaming in distress down in a gully, 
and as it continued I called to Burt, who was 
nearer the spot to see what was the matter. 
Guided by the sound he went down quickly and 
found a sparrow hawk holding on to a wood- 
hen under a log. He caught the hawk, and the 
hen ran away. When I went over I saw that the 
hawk’s beak was full of the inner down of the 
hen, so that she had a narrow escape that time, 
and by calling for help exchanged places with 
her enemy. They have a special note to indicate 
the presence of a sparrow hawk. On another 
occasion I hung a fishing net on the clothes lines 
to dry, and when we came home a little male 
sparrow hawk was caught in the net about one 
foot from the ground. Our tame weka was in 
a great state of agitation, yet bold enough to 
come up and peck at the hawk in defense of her 
chickens. 
In seven weeks the three chickens grew up 
nearly as big as their parents, but very soft, of 
course. And then one of them disappeared with 
a hawk, I suppose, though we had killed six and 
thought we were doing a good turn, because we 
saw one hunting a pigeon. When the tide is 
low and the wekas are tempted away out on the 
beaches, I think the hawks take 90 per cent, of 
the young ones, which may be quite desirable, 
because from recent developments the wekas ap¬ 
pear to be the worst enemies of the ducks. 
EGG DESTROYERS. 
Our goose made her nest right before the 
window, and only ten yards from the house. In 
gathering material she took a little straw, but 
preferred more substantial stuff. When leaving 
the nest she carefully covered up the egg, so 
that I was surprised to find it so deep among 
the sprigs and chips. I covered it up again as 
I got it, but next morning the nest was opened, 
and only a few scraps of eggshell remained. I 
was not sure whether it was the dog or the 
weka, but intended to find out. The weka was 
evidently interested in the nest, for we saw him 
walking round while the goose was on it. We 
knew also that he would break an egg at sight, 
for we tried him with a penguin’s egg; he had 
also stolen a roa’s egg shell and destroyed it. 
This was a strong shell, and I saved part of it 
to show how he could punch holes in it. He 
could pick up a penguin’s egg and run away 
with it so quickly that I could hardly get it 
from him. We got several goose eggs by going 
at once and taking them away, until one morn¬ 
ing I was busy with log fires and did not go at 
once. I heard when the goose came off, because 
her mate gave her a noisy greeting, and a few 
minutes afterward I found the nest torn about 
and the weka and his family around the broken 
egg some yards away. Next time the goose was 
on the nest the weka waited about there all the 
time, though the gander tried to drive him away, 
and I went out and threw soft things at him, 
yet he flipped about and defied me, so that I 
took a dislike to him for his outrageous cunning. 
When the goose came away, Burt went at once 
and found the weka digging up the nest in 
search of the egg, and when she started to hatch, 
