large blue berry,* I do not know any large blue berry of a poisonous nature in New Zealand. broken up and thrown into the water, which had the effect of poisoning both man and animal that drank of it. On this information from Tucker we declined taking or using any of the water. On the 27th December, 1817, at daylight, we weighed our anchor and left Port Otago, and sailed for Chatham Island. Hundreds of natives came down on the shore to see us off. We fired a volley of musketry towards them to say ‘Good-bye.’ “We have little to add to the narrative. Captain Kelly regrets having listened to the persuasions of Tucker and the wish of the other men to go on shore the second day without firearms, to which the loss of three unfortunate men may be attributed. Tucker's confidence, however deceived, was founded on some experience, and Captain Kelly has some reason to believe that these natives (though certainly not to be depended upon) were fired in their revenge by the recollection of two or more of their people being shot by Europeans.” Thus ends the first article. In a subsequent number of the Witness, many years later, the story is given as follows, with a few additional points, and offering another motive for the killing of Tucker:— “After Mr. Kelly's voyage in a boat round Tasmania, in the year 1815–16, he was given the command of the ‘Sophia,’ owned by Mr. Birch, of Hobart Town, and sent on a sealing cruise to New Zealand. One of his crew was a man named Tucker, who had in a previous voyage stolen from the natives at Riverton a preserved head, and only saved his life, as utu, or reprisal, from the natives by the vessel getting away before the theft was discovered. This was in 1811, and the baked head was the first offered for sale in Sydney. Whether Tucker thought that the theft had been forgotten or his offence condoned does not appear, as he had the hardihood to return and claim the friendship of the natives whose kindness and confidence he had outraged on a former occasion. At first the relations between the natives and the captain and the crew appeared of the cordial kind, and a Lascar, who was living among the tribe, volunteered to act as interpreter, as Kelly wanted some potatoes in barter. On making inquiry after a boat's crew that had been lost in the neighbourhood, it transpired that the man who had had charge of the boat had been killed and eaten, with all the crew. Unwarned by this event, Kelly put confidence enough in the natives to go among them unarmed, when a shout or a signal was given, and Kelly and two men who went with him—Dutton and