Note 439 — Chapter IX · MYTHOLOGY (continued).

John White, ‘Ancient History of the Maori,’ vol. i. p. 146. In former editions a statement received from New Zealand was inserted, that the cry or laugh of the tiwakawaka or pied fantail is only heard at sunset. This, however does not agree with the accounts of Sir W. Lawry Buller, who, in his ‘Birds of New Zealand,’ vol. i. p. 69, supplemented by his answer to my enquiry, makes it clear that the bird sings in the daytime. Thus the argument connecting the sunset-song with the story as a sunset-myth falls away. In another version of Maui’s death, in White, vol. ii. p. 112, the laughing bird is the patatai or little swamp-rail, which cries at and after nightfall and in the early morning (Buller, vol. ii. p. 98). Note to 3rd ed.