Library of Cryptozoology

Early in the month of May, when the shooting season begins, I was residing, as usual in the autumn, at Dannevirke, in the Forty-mile Bush, and I heard the friendly warning given to "Lookout!" or "Beware!" at a certain notorious lagoon, pool, or deep-water swamp, frequented by ducks, lying about three miles from Dannevirke, and not far from the bridge over the River Manawatu. Curiosity being aroused, I made inquiry, and I found that during the shooting season of the last year (1893) a young man of Dannevirke named George Slade, out shooting, had there seen a taniwha (unknown watery monster), and had fired at it and wounded it. Through the kindness of the resident clergyman (Rev. E. Robertshawe) I had an interview next day with the young man, who related the whole matter very clearly, temperately, and coherently; and, briefly, it was as follows: He was out shooting, and, having fired at a duck there swimming, and killed it, his dog went into the water after it; but

At least nine species of seals frequent the South Island ... The evidence of the actual existence of a southern walrus is at present founded only on hearsay report, but it is very probable that when the great Antarctic islands and ice-floes, as yet unvisited, are explored, not only this but other novel forms will be found.

In the absence of any more real animals, two mythical ones may be briefly mentioned. These are the taniwha and the kaurehe . Both are aquatic or amphibious in their habits, the taniwha being apparently confined to the North Island and the kaurehe to the Middle Island. The taniwha is a powerful and bloodthirsty monster, frequenting tapu or sacred pools or rivers but sometimes met with in the sea, and devouring persons who profanely violate the sanctity of its haunts or who have otherwise offended the gods. Some years ago, a Maori clergyman of the Church of England on the East Coast reported to the Government that a beautiful and beloved young woman, a member of his flock, had rashly gone to bathe in a tapu pool against his and her friends' entreaties; that she had been missing for some days; and that her body had been found on a rock beside the pool, badly mangled by a taniwha . There is no English name for the taniwha , but it may safely be classed under the generic term of B