Many a rough, rude bushman has grown quite sentimental regarding these little companions of man, and would visit with dire vengeance any attempt to harm them. The Maori, as usual, have quaint superstitious fancies about them. An old fellow, who in youth had been "out" with Hone Heke, was once my companion on a journey through the forest. He alluded feelingly to the waka-waka that, as usual, were fluttering about us. "Ah!" he said, "they are little spirits" (atua nuke-nuke). "They come to see what men are doing in the bush by day, and go back to tell God at night. To-night they will say, 'we saw the Maori and the Pakeha together in the forest. They ate of the same, and drank of the same, and slept together in one blanket, and were brothers.' And God will say, 'It is good!'" These are the birds known to the naturalists of our shanty, but there are plenty more species, rarer, or whose habitat is limited to districts south of this. And now, too, any ornithological catalogue of the country must contain the names of numerous acclimatised species, many of which are getting almost too abundant. We have many English song-birds and insect-eaters; larks and linnets and thrushes, etc. And we have game in any quantity in some districts, rapidly extending all over the islands, of the following descriptions: The English pheasant (_Phasianus colchicus_), the Chinese pheasant (_Phasianus torquatus_), the partridge (_Perdix cinerea_), the Californian quail (_Ortyx Californicus_), the Australian quail (_Coturnix pectoralis_), and some others. I have already said something about insects, when describing our home life. I spoke of the mosquito (_Culex_), of the sandfly (_Simulium_), and of the kauri-bug (_Polyzosteria N.Z._). I think I also mentioned a certain not wholly unknown and _nimble_ creature, which the Maori are accustomed to term Pakeha-nuke-nuke, or "little stranger." Then there is the Cricket (_Cicada_), which swarms on the clearings, eating down the grass, and doing damage in the gardens and fields. It is the chief enemy of farmers. We have to keep large flocks of turkeys on the clearings to keep down the crickets. They devour the insect greedily, getting to a marvellous size on the food, and acquiring a delicacy and flavour far beyond that of stubble-fed birds. A plague of caterpillars also appears sometimes, which must be combated by similar means. We have flies in hosts, innumerable spiders, some of them as big as walnuts, with hairy legs like a crab's claws, huge flying locust-grasshoppers, goat-chafers, cock-chafers, dragon-flies, beetles, and butterflies, the last not often remarkable for size or brilliance. There are two unique creatures that must have special reference made to them.