In Polynesia the ancestors of the Maori depended largely upon fish to augment their food-supplies. In spite of the larger land area of New Zealand, there were no indigenous mammals, with the exception of two kinds of bat. These were not large or numerous enough to be of any food value. The dog, which the Maori brought with him, was eaten, but, the supply being limited, it served only as a luxury for people of rank. The rat, which also accompanied the immigrants, multiplied on the berries and roots of the forest. It was trapped, preserved in its own fat, and esteemed as a delicacy. Owing to its size, however, it was of little importance, quantitatively, in the dietary of the people. The pig, known in Polynesia, never reached New Zealand until the coming of Captain Cook. Though the forests, lakes, lagoons, and outlying islets teemed with bird-life that supplied their quota to the neolithic larder, it was the fish of the sea, rivers, lakes, and streams that provided the Maori with the greater portion of his flesh foods. Thus we find the population mainly established along the sea-coast, with extensions up the river-valleys and around the shores of the larger lakes.

The methods of procuring fish were based upon the careful observations of generations of fishermen, who studied the habits, food-supplies, and seasons of the various fish frequenting the waters that formed an important part of the tribal territory. To the Maori the area covered by a lake or river was as important for food-producing purposes as fertile strips that were unsubmerged by water. On the coast, the value of his domain did not cease at high-water mark, but extended to the sands, rocks, reefs, and far-out submerged feeding-grounds where the finny Children of Tangaroa assembled in their appropriate seasons. The times of their movements and migrations to feed or spawn were well known, and influenced method and invention. Always the Maori caught for the cooking-oven and the storehouse. Though he felt the fisherman's thrill in making a good catch, it was always as a means to an end, and not the wasteful end itself, as is so often the case with his European neighbour.

The indiscriminate dropping of a baited line in the hope of hooking anything that came along is rightly regarded by the Maori as the action of a kuware—a person devoid of practical sense. The European solar calendar, whilst utilized in many directions, seems to be but little used as a guide as to when various fish are both plentiful and in good condition. The Maori unwritten lunar calendar marked the seasons of appropriate food-supplies on land, or in water, whether salt or fresh. The rains of