distinguish four seasons:--spring, _te aro aro_, _mahaua_, _te toru_, ‘the time of growth’, both _toru_ and _aro aro_ signify ‘the shooting or springing forth of plants’, _mahaua_ is the season of warmth; summer, _raumati_, _waru_, _rehua_,--_raumati_ means ‘dead leaves’, and the summer is so called because all the trees with one exception are evergreen and shed their leaves in summer; autumn, _ngahura matiti_; winter, _hotoke_, _puanga_, the season when the earth is damp and gives forth her worms, which were formerly highly prized as food[306]. The seasons are regulated by the stars, _puanga_ is the great winter star, _rehu_ the great summer star. The names of the greater seasons are therefore taken for the most part from the varying phases of the climate, but very often refer also to the phenomena of natural life accompanying these. The climatic phases, on account of their fluctuating duration and their limited number, afford no means of distinguishing and naming a greater number of smaller seasons: the phases of plant and animal life may be used as an equivalent and are much better adapted to this purpose, especially when to them are added the regular occupations of agriculture. In the above examples terms referring to natural life have already been found mingled with those borrowed from the climate. Where the seasons are numerous this is always the case: direct references to the climate may even be entirely lacking. These facts shew moreover that between the largest and smallest seasons there exists no difference in the main: they pass into one another without interruption through a series of intermediate stages. Such smaller seasons may be run together into the circle of the year; but this seldom occurs, since the ordinary reckoning according to lunar months has absorbed the smaller seasons, which, on account of their varying and indeterminate length, are inconvenient for reckoning, whereas the regular and definite length of the months makes them easy to reckon. It is however sometimes the case.