A favourite amusement during long winter evenings was the repeating of fables, folk-lore, and weird legends, the whole being included under the term of “korero tara,” or “pakiwaitara.” Some of these would be fables of olden times, handed down for centuries by succeeding generations. Such are the fables of the ant and the cicada, that of the lizard and the gurnard, and that concerning the Wai-kato and Rangi-taiki Rivers in their race for the sea; as also the wild legend