o Rutherford the pigs run wild in the woods, and are hunted
by dogs. He also mentions that there are a few horned cattle in the
interior, which have been bred from some left by the discovery ships. No
other account, however, confirms this statement. There are in New
Zealand a few rats, and bats; and the coasts are frequented by seals of
different species. One of the natives told Cook that there was in the
interior a lizard eight feet long, and as thick as a man's body, which
burrowed in the ground, and sometimes seized and devoured men. This
animal, of the existence of which we have the additional evidence of an
exactly similar description given by one of the chiefs to Nicholas, is
probably an alligator. The natives, as we learn from Cruise, have the
greatest horror of a lizard, in the shape of which animal they believe
it is that the atua (or demon) is wont to take possession of the dying,
and to devour their entrails--a superstition which may not be
unconnected with the dread the alligator has spread among them by its
actual ravages, or the stories that have been propagated respecting it.
They report that in the part of the country where it is found it makes
great havoc among children, carrying them off and devouring them
whenever they come in its way.[AP]

There are not many species of insects, those seen by Anderson, who
accompanied Cook, being only a few dragonflies, butterflies,
grasshoppers, spiders, and black ants, vast numbers of scorpion flies,
and a sandfly, which is described as the only noxious insect in the
country. It insinuates itself under the foot, and bites like a mosquito.

The birds of New Zealand are very numerous, and almost all are peculiar
to the country. Among them are wild ducks, large wood-pigeons, seagulls,
rails, parrots, and parrakeets. They are generally very tame.

Rutherford states that during his long residence he became very expert,
after the manner of the natives, in catching birds with a noosed
string, and that he has thus caught thousands of ground parrots with a
line about fifty feet long. The most remarkable bird is one to which
Cook's people gave the name of the mocking-bird, from the extraordinary
variety of its notes.[AQ] There is also another which was called by the
English the poe, or poi bird, from a little tuft of white curled
feathers which it has under its throat, and which seemed to them to
resemble certain white flowers worn as ornaments in the ears by the
people of