t easily met with, and in the bush they are esteemed
a prize. Our lot are a scratch pack, made up of any that can be induced
to seize a pig, and have weight sufficient to hold on to him; a few are
thought to be more experienced and capable.

The men, on assembling, mostly go into the shanty to get some
breakfast, in the shape of tea, bread, smoked fish and pork, and then
straggle about the place, smoking, chatting, and waiting for the order
to start. Picture the rough grassy slopes, covered with the standing
stumps among the new grass, the rude shanty in the middle of the lower
ground, as I have described it, the background of bush-covered heights,
with the sun just coming up from behind them into the brilliant sky; and
people this scene with the groups of men--Maori and Pakeha, uncouth in
appearance as the shaggy cattle that are looking on from a corner of the
clearing, or as the clumsy-looking but savage dogs that roam about, or
are held in leash by their owners. Such is a "meet" in the bush.

"Rather a different affair from the last meet of the Pytchley that you
and I rode to," remarks one brawny, blue-shirted and ankle-jacked giant
to another, as they squat on a log, comfortably enjoying an early whiff
of "Venus" from their short, black clays.

"What would they say at home, if they could see us now?" replies his
friend, pushing back the battered relic of a "topee" from his unkempt
hair and somewhat dirty face. Truly, the pair would scarcely appear to
advantage in an English huntingfield, in their present trim.

And now, while the last preparations are being made for the start, let
us see what it is we are about to attack. The New Zealand wild pig of
the present day is the descendant of animals introduced by Captain Cook
and other of the early voyagers from the old countries. These people
gave pigs to the natives with whom they opened intercourse, and the
Maoris, not being used to live stock, lost a good many of their new
acquisitions, which ran away into the bush and easily eluded pursuit in
its dense coverts. Here they bred and multiplied to such a degree that
immense droves of them are now to be found in all parts of the islands.
In the fern-root and other roots of the bush they find an endless supply
of food, which, if it does not tend to make their meat of good quality,
at any rate seems to favour an increase in their numbers.

Whatever may have been the original breed of these animals, the present
represent