46 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
46 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
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---
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title: Extinction of the Huia
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layout: page
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---
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> Melodious as its Māori name, the gentle Huia bird
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> seems a fowl lost from an ancient bestiary.
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>
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> Always in pairs, their life one long low liquid interchange,
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> they rarely flew, but hopped and probed in deepest thickets
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> preening and balancing, antiphonal.
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>
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> They fed upon the luscious huhu grub
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> under mossed and lichened podocarps
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> — fed and hopped so lovingly together
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> that if a Māori noosed one bird, its mate would come to hand.
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>
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> Working together, joint custodians, His straight crow-bar beak
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> and Her thin curving probe, utterly unlike, conjoined
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> to wingle out tree-eating grubs.
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>
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> Never widespread or numerous, their superb sober
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> plumes made mourning-wear for centuries
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> until Cook visited. The stuffed ones soon
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> were 'musts' for lounge-rooms, though few knew
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> how well their natures fitted these strange bills.
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>
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> Charmed by his captive pair,
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> Buller records how native know-how and the foreign gun
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> took in 600 skins from a week's work
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> — most of the world's remaining stock:
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> 'Now safely on the increase'. A common bird today
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> in Auckland's antique shops, its loving notes
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> that ranged from purest whistles to what seemed
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> a puppy's whining call, are gone, lost,
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> all before the age of tapes and films.
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> The bird remains supreme in words
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> of those who loved and stuffed it.
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>
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> And our museum has one — that is,
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> of course, a pair.
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>
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> — by [Mark O'Connor](https://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/o-connor-mark/extinction-of-the-huia-0161057).
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