Situated near the west coast of the South Island, it is some 20 miles north-east of Milford Sound and about the same distance from the head of Lake Wakatipu. It was first named in 1862 by Sir James Hector, then Otago Provincial Geologist, but until recently it has been shown on official maps as Red Hill, an inappropriate name for a peak 6,600 ft in height. Red Mountain forms one of the most prominent land marks on this part of the coast and from its peculiar colour and great height is always an object of interest, even to those who view it only from a distance. In sheltered places it carries a considerable field of snow all the year and, except on its eastern flank, it is entirely destitute of vegetation, its surface on all sides, from top to bottom, being one great talus of loose rocks considerably furrowed by water courses and snow ruts. The striking dun-red colour of the mountain and its extreme sterility are due mainly to the mineral character of its rocks, which are ultrabasic. Although not an accessible tourist attraction, it presents a magnificent view of Big Bay from the upper Pyke Hut near Awarua.

by Alexander Russell Mutch, B.SC., A.O.S.M., New Zealand Geological Survey, Dunedin.

(1824–94).

Prospector and miner.

A new biography of Read, Thomas Gabriel appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Gabriel Read was the son of Captain G. F. Read who, with his family, settled in Tasmania in 1816 after receiving a grant of land, some of which is still in the possession of the family. Gabriel was well educated, and when at a comparatively early age he began the globe-trotting that was to take him halfway round the world, he was already a man of property in his own right. At the age of 26 he sailed for the Californian goldfields in his own schooner. He made little money but learnt much about gold fossicking, and when he returned to Australia he became caught up in the Victorian gold rushes, mainly because Edward Hargreaves, who had made the first discoveries there, showed that the rocks and strata in the Victorian fold areas were much the same as those he had encountered in California. Read, however, did not stay long on the Victorian goldfields. The violence at the Eureka Stockade and the general atmosphere of licence and lawlessness which had discouraged him in America disgusted him in his own country. He went back to Tasmania, but he was not to remain on the sideline for long. News of gold strikes in Southland around Mataura trickled through to Hobart Town, and in the new year of 1861 he was off on his travels again.

Read arrived in Otago in January 1861 on the Don Pedro II, and found a very lukewarm attitude with respect to Mataura gold. But he set off southwards. First at Tokomairiro, and then at the Clutha Ferry, he was warned that he was on a wild goose chase, and before crossing the Clutha he decided to retrace his steps. On his return he paused at Tokomairiro and hired himself out to a squatter named Hardy, who was also a member of the Otago Provincial Council. Hardy believed strongly in the possibilities of the Tuapeka area as a gold-bearing locality and did his best to persuade Read to go there. His representations were backed up by the Superintendent of the Province, Major Richardson, who on behalf of the Council offered a reward for any discovery that might be made. Thus it was that Read turned his attention to Tuapeka, Waitahuna, and Wetherstones.

Having heard of a find by one, Black Peter, at a locality known as Woolshed Creek, Read set off for that area, and despite a good deal of good-natured derision from the local inhabitants, he disappeared into the hills and gullies, and on 23 May 1861 struck colour in a gully that has borne his name for a hundred years. The gold was easily accessible, not more than a few feet down beneath a soft overburden of slatey shale. Having satisfied himself that he had stumbled across a rich deposit, and that the gold could easily be worked, he gave a demonstration of that unselfishness and consideration which set him apart from the majority of those who benefited by his find. He had already written a letter to the Otago Witness declaring that the “Waitahuna and Tuapeka goldfields will before long astound the province”. He now went one better and announced his discovery, giving the location and prospects, holding back nothing.

“Although the being able to work secretly for a time would greatly benefit me,” he wrote in June in the Otago Witness, “I feel it my duty to impart these facts.” By this time, too, he had informed the Provincial Council of the prospective value of his discovery. The public reaction was immediate and frantic. While the Otago Witness deplored the manifestations of unbridled gold fever and uttered dire jeremiads on the probable outcome of such disruption of the life of the community, the wild rush was transforming the Otago hinterland. A new settlement sprang up pulsating with vigorous life, and as if by magic the solitudes of Tuapeka were shattered by an invading army of blue-shirted diggers armed with picks and shovels. In fact, by July there were 11,472 persons in the district, only 148 of them women, compared with a population of 5,850 in Dunedin itself. The results were all that Gabriel Read had anticipated and many fortunes were made, and lost. Read himself was content to work with his pick and shovel “in common with others”, and to rely on the promised reward of £500 from the Provincial Council.

With the field well established, and more miners clamouring for claims outside the limits of Gabriel's Gully, the Provincial Council persuaded Read to accept a paid position as a sort of official fossicker. Once more he set off on his own, ranging far and wide through the Waipahi, Pomahaka, Blue Mountain, and Waipori districts, and penetrating up to the headwaters of the Waitahuna and Tuapeka Rivers. He found some gold, but he was not happy in his task, and after a few months he wrote to the Superintendent of Otago declaring himself ill-qualified to prosecute his search any further, and asking to be relieved of his duties. He withdrew from the goldfields to Dunedin, where the Provincial Council made him a grant of £1,000 in appreciation of his efforts. Read wandered up and down the South Island for a time, made a wide tour of the North Island, and then returned to his native Tasmania. He came back to New Zealand for brief periods, but not in search of gold, and he died in Hobart in 1894 in his seventieth year.

Probably nothing in the pesonality and character of Gabriel Read became him more than his downright and almost overconscientious altruism. He was at his best in the company of those who shared with him a background of public interest. He had had experience of the violence of other gold-mining communities and had sampled the form of outlawry that seemed to be the accepted thing among the many desperate men he encountered. These conditions dismayed him, and he employed his strongest efforts to prevent them from developing in Tuapeka. By common consent he acted as an umpire in the innumerable disputes over claims which arose by reason of the fact that Gabriel's Gully was not a proclaimed goldfield, and he displayed the greatest concern for the moral and material welfare of the community generally. He encouraged the establishment of religious organisations, and in fact paid £50 out of his own pocket to facilitate the first divine services on the field. Everything the Otago Witness had feared as a consequence of his discovery he laboured incessantly to avoid, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was not entirely unsuccessful. He was a fossicker, a miner, and a wanderer, but he showed himself a gentleman as well, and most of those who knew him honoured him for it, even though many of them could not bring themselves to follow his example. When urging the Provincial Council to make the promised £500 into a gratuity double that sum, the Superintendent paid a warm tribute to his “noble and generous disinterestedness” and drew the attention of the community to “the immediate and unreserved communication of his discovery”.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

• History of Otago, McLintock, A. H. (1949)
• Early Days in Central Otago, Gilkison, R. (1958)
• Tuapeka, the Land and its People, Mayhew, W. R. (1949).

The electric ray, (Narcobatus fairchildi), or whai repo of the Maoris, has a sharklike tail, but the front of the body is expanded as a large flat disc. It is black and grows up to about 4 ft in length. There is no spine on the tail, but the fish has the remarkable ability of inflicting a powerful electric shock. Beneath the skin on each side of the forward flukes of the body there are intricate cells, connected with the nervous system, which serve to produce an electric discharge capable of giving a human being quite a severe shock.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

(Myliobatus tenuicaudatus).

This ray grows to about 3 ft in width and has a thick body with a bluntly rounded snout, but the flukes are extended laterally to tapered points so that the whole outline resembles the shape of a kite. The colour varies from dirty greenish-grey to almost black. It is harmless except for a hard, bony spine set at an angle on the smooth whiplike tail. This spine can inflict a nasty wound and is dangerous, since there are poison glands and ducts associated with it. The eagle ray feeds largely upon shellfish, which it crushes with powerful jaws lined with hexagonal flat teeth set like paving stones.

This fish is common in northern waters, especially in the Hauraki Gulf where it is frequently seen in shallow water during summer.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

(Typha angustifolia).

This is a plant that is almost cosmopolitan, with a number of forms, occurring in various parts of the world. It is the bulrush of Europe that figures in much literature. The New Zealand form is sometimes put in a different species. A swamp or water plant, it is particularly common around the shallow edges of lakes and in swamps where surface water lies a few inches deep for most of the winter. It is commonly associated with harakeke or Phormium tenax, another plant occupying swampy land.

Raupo has creeping rhizomes from which are given off long, linear leaves sometimes as tall as 8 ft. The minute flowers are crowded in spikes at the top of tall, rounded stems. The upper part of the spike, which is about 3–6 in. long, consists of male, and the lower part of female, flowers.

Next to the harakeke, raupo was probably the plant most used by the Maoris. Its best-known use now is for the making of pois. The leaves were used, and are occasionally still used, for constructing the walls of whares. The starchy rhizomes sometimes served for food, and the pollen, which is produced in large quantity, was collected, mixed with water, and baked into cakes.

The genus Typha is the only member of the monocotyledenous family Typhaceae. It contains about a dozen species spread over most of the world.

by Alec Lindsay Poole, M.SC., B.FOR.SC., F.R.S.N.Z., Director-General of Forests, Wellington.

(c. 1768–1849).

War chief of the Ngati Toa.

A new biography of Te Rauparaha appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

This famous chief of the Ngati Toa was born in 1768 or 1769, probably at Maungatautari, the home of his mother's people. He was the son of Werawera, a chief of the Ngati Toa, and, through him, was descended from Toa Rangitira, the eponymous ancestor of the Ngati Toa branch of Tainui. As his mother, Parekohatu, of Ngati Raukawa, was not Werawera's first or principal wife, her children were not of the highest rank in the Ngati Toa. Shortly after his son's birth Werawera was killed by a Waikato chief who boasted that, if his victim's infant son should also fall into his hands, the child would make an excellent relish for his rauparaha (an edible plant of the convolvulous family which grew in profusion on the sand dunes at Kawhia). Werawera's people thus named the child “Te Rauparaha”.

Te Rauparaha's prowess in battle and his remarkable qualities of leadership were shown at an early age. Although very little is known of his early life, tribal history records several skirmishes with Waikato and Maniapoto war parties, and he is said to have incited Hongi Hika to make his famed attack on the Arawas at Rotorua. In September 1819 a Ngapuhi taua (war party) who had recently acquired muskets which they were anxious to test on tribes living further south, passed through Kawhia, and its leaders, Waka Nene and Patuone, induced Te Rauparaha and his nephew Te Rangihaeata to join them. This party attacked and dispersed the Ngati Ruanui and other tribes, but spared Ngati Awa. At Kapiti Island Te Rauparaha concluded a temporary peace with the Ngati Apa, as, even then, he hoped to return later to occupy their territory.

When he returned to Kawhia Te Rauparaha found that his first wife, Marore, had been killed at the instigation of Te Wherowhero. This involved Ngati Toa in unsuccessful war with the Waikatos. After this Te Rauparaha retired to his stronghold at Te Arawi, where he decided to enlist support from his kinsfolk, the Ngati Raukawa, by travelling to Maungatautari. While he was there the Ngati Raukawa chief, Hape Te Tuarangi, died and Te Rauparaha was elected to succeed him. To consolidate his position Te Rauparaha then married Akau, Hape's favourite wife, and she later became the mother of his son Tamihana Te Rauparaha.

Back in Kawhia Te Rauparaha prepared for his tribe's migration to Kapiti. As he realised that this would take several years, he negotiated with the Ngati Tama and Ngati Awa for stopping places in their territories. Because these tribes possessed close blood ties with the Waikatos, Te Rauparaha realised that neither Te Wherowhero nor Te Waharoa would be disposed to permit Ngati Toa to depart unmolested. Early in the summer of 1820 the Waikatos, Maniapotos, and their allies attacked Ngati Toa positions around Kawhia. An invading army of 5,000 men struck simultaneously by land and sea, and Ngati Toa survivors were forced back upon Te Arawi, where Te Rauparaha had to capitulate after a siege lasting several weeks. There Te Rangituatea, a Maniapoto chief who was related to Te Rauparaha, arranged canoes for his escape. On the understanding that he and his tribe would be allowed to withdraw, Te Rauparaha ceded all the Ngati Toa lands around Kawhia to Te Wherowhero and Te Hiakia. Early in 1821 the remnant of Ngati Toa – numbering 1,500 men, women, and children – commenced their arduous trek to the south. Later in the year Waikatos attacked them at Motunui (near Waitara), but were repulsed. From Waitara the tribe trekked overland to Patea (autumn 1822) and journeyed in canoes to the mouth of the Manawatu River (Foxton). They then moved on to Ohau, where they built a pa and began cultivation.

Before Te Rauparaha reached Ohau, the Muaupoko of that district sent messengers who requested peace. Te Rauparaha accepted, but soon infuriated the Muaupoko chiefs by killing a woman of their tribe. They therefore conspired to kill him by guile, but their plans went awry and Te Rauparaha escaped. Because of this outrage he swore to exterminate the whole tribe and, shortly afterwards, he defeated them at Horowhenua. The survivors took refuge on islands in Lake Horowhenua, from where they were removed as the Ngati Toa required meat. About this time reinforcements arrived from Ngati Raukawa and also from Ngati Awa. Te Whatanui also attempted to reach them, but his party were defeated by Ngati Kahungunu and had to turn back. Kapiti was captured by a taua under Pehi Kupe, a close relative of Te Rauparaha, and the whole tribe was withdrawn to the safety of that island. In 1825 a force of 2,000 men, drawn from many tribes, attacked Kapiti from a fleet of canoes which “blackened the sea”. There was a fierce battle on the beach at Waiorua (near the northern end of the island) and the attackers were routed.

Because there were frequent quarrels between his allies, Te Rauparaha, at the suggestion of his sister Waitohi, moved the Ngati Awa to Waikanae and the Ngati Raukawa to the land between Kukutautaki and the Whangaehu River. The Ngati Toa remained at Kapiti, but later occupied Mana Island and Porirua also. Te Rauparaha was recognised as the senior chief in the district and the arrangement received the assent of all.

Having subdued the tribes living on the west coast of Wellington Province, Te Rauparaha coveted the greenstone of the South Island. A satisfactory pretext for war was found when Rerewaka, a Ngai Tahu chief of Kaikoura, suggested that if Te Rauparaha dared to set foot on his lands he would rip his belly open with a niho manga (shark's tooth knife). Towards the end of 1828 Te Rauparaha led a fleet of canoes to D'Urville Island and, after capturing the pas in Northern Marlborough, he surprised and took Kaikoura pa. At the conclusion of this campaign Te Rauparaha acceded to a Ngati Raukawa request to avenge Ruamaioro, who had been killed at Putiki some time earlier. He went via Wanganui, and reduced Putiki-wharanui pa after a two months' siege. Flushed by these victories the Ngati Toa leader decided to punish Kekerenga – a Ngati Ira chief who had had an adulterous “affair” with one of Te Rangihaeata's wives, and who had later sought sanctuary with Ngai Tahu. Using this as a pretext Te Rauparaha determined to take the strong Ngai Tahu pa at Kaiapohia (near Kaiapoi). The enemy, however, had been forewarned. Te Rauparaha therefore feigned friendship and sent Pehi Kupe and other chiefs into the stronghold. Their plot, however, was discovered. Finding his force insufficient to capture the pa Te Rauparaha returned to Kapiti, where he persuaded Captain Stewart, of the brig Elizabeth, to convey a large war party to Akaroa. There they seized and killed the Ngai Tahu chief Tamaiharanui. A well-armed force then besieged Kaiapohia, which fell to a Ngati Toa stratagem, and the ferocity of Te Rauparaha's revenge has since passed into legend. The southern Ngai Tahu chiefs Tuhawaiki and Taiaroa arrived at Kaiapohia too late to save the pa. They followed the retreating Ngati Toa, however, and fought an engagement with them at Cloudy Bay (Marlborough). Here the Ngati Toa suffered a severe defeat and their survivors, including Te Rauparaha himself, escaped by swimming to their canoes.

On his return to Kapiti, Te Rauparaha found that his Ngati Raukawa and Ngati Awa allies were again quarrelling. Te Heuheu (Mananui) and Te Rauparaha both intervened and, in 1834, the dispute culminated in the battle of Haowhenua. This was the last tribal fight in which Te Rauparaha took part.

By 1839 missionary influence reached the Wellington–West Coast area. Hadfield settled in the district and made his presence felt among the Maoris. The Ngati Raukawa – Ngati Awa dispute flared anew and the former were routed after a skirmish on the beach at Waikanae. It was generally believed that Te Rauparaha had instigated this incident, and it was also admitted that he and Te Rangihaeata had quarrelled over the division of the payment received for the sale of land to the New Zealand Company. About this time Colonel Wakefield claimed to have purchased most of the Maori land holdings in the Cook Strait area. In 1841, when European settlers began to move into the Porirua district, both Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata emphatically denied having sold it. In April of that year, when Kettle was sent to survey the area, he found that Te Rangihaeata had given his tribe explicit instructions to obstruct the surveyors.

On 14 May 1840 Te Rauparaha and other Wellington chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi They did not, however, interpret their acceptance of British Sovereignty as offering a carte blanche for European settlement. While Rangihaeata openly obstructed the surveyors Te Rauparaha established a large pa on the mainland at Plimmerton. He had in the meantime taken up temporary residence at Otaki and from there announced his intention of preventing the spread of European settlement up the Hutt Valley.

But the clash came elsewhere. In April 1843 Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata opposed a European survey party at Wairau (Marlborough) and Captain Wakefield was killed. After the Wairau Affray Te Rauparaha tried to incite the Ngati Awa of Waikanae to attack Wellington. Failing in this he retired to Otaki, where he professed a belief in Christianity and an abhorrence of war. On 12 February 1844 Governor FitzRoy met Te Rauparaha at Waikanae and ruled that the Europeans had acted wrongly at Wairau. He also secured an agreement by which the two Ngati Toa chiefs waived their claims to the Hutt Valley in return for £200 being paid to each.

Shortly after his arrival in New Zealand, Governor Grey put on a show of force which induced the intruders to leave the valley. Te Rauparaha still claimed that he owed allegiance to the Crown, but his nephew resorted to open warfare. As Grey was under the impression that Te Rauparaha's loyalty was uncertain, British troops seized him at Porirua on 23 July 1846 and spirited him away to Auckland. Here, in September 1847, 200 Hauraki chiefs gathered in his honour and listened while Te Rauparaha – with great dignity – recited his famous deeds. He was never brought to trial (indeed there have always been serious doubts about the legality of the Governor's action in arresting him in the first place) and Grey released him in 1848. Te Rauparaha returned to Otaki, where he died on 27 November 1849.

Although not born to the highest chiefly rank, Te Rauparaha early won a reputation for cunning and audacious war leadership. He ranks with Te Whero–whero and Tuhawaiki in this because these were the two chiefs who came nearest to defeating him in battle. He was renowned for the cleverness of his stratagems and for his unfailing habit of turning his enemies' tricks against themselves. In an age of fierce tribal wars Te Rauparaha was unmatched for his ferocity, and vanquished foes almost invariably ended their careers in the Ngati Toa cooking pots. Among his enemies Te Rauparaha enjoyed an unenviable reputation for treachery; however, it must be remembered that, as the Ngati Toa were at that time fighting for survival, the traditional rules of warfare were necessarily disregarded. Maori tradition credits Te Rauparaha's elder sister, Waitohi, with being the mastermind behind many of his strategic moves. It was she, for instance, who set out the main tribal boundaries between Manawatu and Porirua. Whatever truth there may be in this – Te Rauparaha usually consulted her when planning his more spectacular coups – his cleverest tricks, improvised in the heat of battle, were peculiarly his own. Te Rauparaha's fame rests principally upon the extent of his conquests and, as a result, he has often been dubbed the “Maori Napoleon”. It must also be remembered, however, that he was equally successful in the intertribal diplomacy of his day, and that in this respect his methods were worthy of a “Bismarck”.

Te Rauparaha was a very short, wizened man, less than 5 ft tall. He was buried near the church he had asked Hadfield to build at Otaki, but, according to Maori traditions, his remains were later exhumed and reinterred on Kapiti.

by Robert Ritchie Alexander, M.A., DIP.ED.(N.Z.), B.T.(CALCUTTA), PH.D.(MINNESOTA), Teachers' Training College, Christchurch and Wattie Carkeek, Journalist, Wellington.

• Sir George Grey, Rutherford, J. (1961)
• Maori Wars in the Nineteenth Century, Smith, S. P. (1910)
• Te Rauparaha and the Sacking of Kaiapohia, Travers, W. T. L., and Stack, J. W. (1893).

(1854–1931).

Feminist and social worker.

A new biography of Rattray, Lizzie Frost appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Lizzie Frost Rattray was born at Dunedin in 1854, daughter of Archdeacon John Fenton and Mary, née Lister. After an education in England and France she married in 1879 William Rattray, an Auckland businessman who had been a member of the Provincial Council from 1861 to 1865. Lizzie Rattray took up work for a number of welfare organisations, including the Young Women's Institute, the Girls' Friendly Society, and the St. John's Ambulance. Her feminist views led her into the campaign for the women's suffrage and she became a committee member of the Women's Franchise League. She was also one of the earliest women journalists in the country, acting as co-editor of the New Zealand Graphic from 1892 and as New Zealand correspondent for The Gentlewoman for many years. She died at Auckland on 12 August 1931. In the course of a busy life Lizzie Rattray fought hard for the equality of the sexes and it would appear that her intelligence and ability, displayed in writing and administrative work alike, pleaded her cause even more eloquently than her words.

by Patricia Ann Grimshaw, M.A., Auckland.

• The Dominion, 13 Aug 1931 (Obit).

(1870–1939).

Maori faith healer and leader.

A new biography of Ratana, Tahupotiki Wiremu appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Better known in later life as “Bill”, T. W. Ratana was reared in the Wanganui region. From being an obscure Maori farmer in 1921, he had by the end of that year attracted national attention by his powers of faith healing. The reformed drinker's new power became apparent following visions, falling into trances, and curing a child after several days of prayer. Maori people flocked to him from all over New Zealand and miraculous cures were reported by many of them. Ratana himself was simple in speech and method; he spoke to each person quietly and never gestured; he never dramatised or indulged in meaningless ritual during his faith-healing sessions. To each one he required belief in God and rejection of Maori beliefs in Tohungaism. This was one of his greatest influences on the Maori people of that time but it was tempered by his advocacy of faith alone as a cure for all ills, rather than reliance on medical advice. Tall and slightly stooped and a lover of pipe smoking, Ratana had the penetrating eyes of a mystic with the modesty of a great man. He shunned press interviews, avoided photographers, and sought to escape attention by surrounding himself with an entourage who refused to identify him when asked.

Ratana formed a church which bears his name with the main temple at Ratana pa. He looked upon himself as a mouthpiece or intermediary between God and man so that much of the church ritual glorified his name and status. Although he made prophecies, he appeared to regard himself not as a prophet but merely “the instrument of God”. Ratana allied the movement with Labour Party policies, eventually obtaining his first electoral success in 1931. After his death Ratana candidates continued to dominate the Maori political scene.

Apart from his faith healing, religious, and political influence, Ratana gave new hope to the Maori people of the early 1920s. This developed into a rising tide of nationalism in the thirties. Although the numbers of Ratana adherents are decreasing, the movement still remains an influence, particularly in politics.

In his later years Ratana seemed to lose some of his power of faith healing and his following was checked by an unfortunate, though unfounded, charge of intoxication. The suggestion of drink, in view of his early background, and the fact that he did not permit alcohol at any of his gatherings, perhaps influenced many people against him. During his 18 years of faith healing he had to endure criticism in the press and on the platform but he remained, in spite of this, an unassuming yet commanding figure. His followers obeyed him willingly and his decision was absolute, but in his desire to eradicate the wrongs affecting the Maori people he failed to take into account the mood of the country. After his death many reforms in Maori welfare and land problems took place and some of these may have been due, in part, to the influence of the Ratana movement in the political field.

by John Bruce Palmer, B.A., Curator, Fiji Museum, Suva.

(Metrosideros robusta and M. umbellata). These two ratas are amongst the best known of New Zealand trees because of the profuse crops of red flowers they bear, in good flowering seasons, about Christmas time. They are also the only broad-leaf trees which, together with the conifers like rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum), rise above the general level of the broadleaf canopy. There are a number of other New Zealand ratas, but they are all climbers of varying habits. The coastal tree, pohutukawa, also belongs to the same genus. Metrosideros belongs to the myrtle family which is a very large one, mostly tropical and subtropical, well represented in Australia especially by the genus Eucalyptus. Species of Metrosideros also occur in Australia as well as in Malaya and Polynesia.

The northern rata is found in coastal to lower montane forests from the Three Kings to the northern part of the South Island. It is a remarkable tree in that it starts as an epiphyte in the crowns of tall forest trees, often rimus. Aerial roots then grow down the trunks of the host tree and from these lateral roots are given off which finally encircle the host. The rata continues to grow till roots reach the ground and the rata finally displaces the host altogether. The trunks of large ratas are therefore most irregular, composed as they are of a tangled, fused mass of roots. The southern rata occurs in lowland to subalpine forests from just north of Auckland to the Snares, Auckland, and Campbell Islands. It commences as a ground plant and grows up to 60 ft high, with a large rounded crown. In many forests on steep mountain sides west of the South Island Main Divide, and especially in Fiord–land, it is the dominant tree.

The leaves of both trees are opposite, 1–2 in. long and about elliptic. Those of the northern rata have emarginate tips, while the leaves of the southern rata are sharp pointed. Both have many-flowered cymes of flowers with numerous red stamens. The leaves are relished by opossums. The wood of both trees is very hard and strong. It is highly prized for firewood, but otherwise is not much used because of the difficulty of getting good logs for sawing. In the early days of settlement, southern rata wood was used for shipbuilding. It is now used, when obtainable, for coach work and cross-arms for telephone poles.

by Alec Lindsay Poole, M.SC., B.FOR.SC., F.R.S.N.Z., Director-General of Forests, Wellington.

The Maori or native rat (Rattus exulans Peale) was known to the Maoris as kiore. According to tradition, the kiore came to New Zealand from Polynesia in the canoe Horouta, one of the Great Fleet (c. 1350 A.D.). But it would appear that the species reached this country at a considerably earlier period, for rat bones have been found in middens along with moa remains. The kiore soon adapted itself to its new habitat, much to the satisfaction of the Maoris who regarded it as a tasty and very important food.

The kiore is a small rat. Head and body are approximately 180 mm in length, the tail being about the same. In colour it is almost indistinguishable from the ship rat (Rattus rattus), which came originally from South-East Asia, and is brown on the back and greyish-white on the underside. In Maori times when the kiore was plentiful, its most remarkable characteristic was its swarming habit which led to extraordinary mass migrations. The kiore soon became a member of the forest community and made its nests in hollow trees and holes in the ground. It was a nocturnal feeder, clean, even fastidious, and in no sense a scavenger. The principal colonies were in the high-lying beech forests where there was a plentiful supply of mast, though berries were also eagerly sought for. Because of these feeding habits the rats, which were lean in summer, became very fat in the berry-bearing season when they were trapped either in pits or in cunningly devised snares set along well-defined tracks or rat-runs which generally extended for miles. At the opening of the rattrapping season the trappers, who were under tapu, strictly followed a set ritual. As soon as the first catch was secured, the tapu was lifted. The rats were singed, plucked, and cooked in an ordinary steam oven. Sometimes, however, they were grilled and preserved in their own fat as huahua, a particularly choice dainty.

By the early 1920s it was believed that the kiore had become extinct. Today it is known to have survived in a few localities in widely separated areas. There are colonies on a number of small islands off the east coast of the North Island, from White Island northwards. In the South Island the kiore is found, sparsely distributed, in the Notornis and Doubtful Sound regions, Fiordland, and in Stewart Island.

by Alexander Hare McLintock, C.B.E., M.A., DIP.ED. (N.Z.), PH.D.(LOND.), Parliamentary Historian, Wellington.

• Introduced Mammals of New Zealand, Wodzicki, K. A. (1950)
• The Coming of the Maori, Buck, Peter (1949)
• The Maori, Best, Elsdon (1924)
• The Present Distribution of Rattus Exulans (Peale) in New Zealand, N.Z. Journal of Sc. and Technology, Vol. 37, No. 5. (J. S. Watson), March 1956.