Food.

The food products grown by the race consisted of kumara and taro. The other carbo-hydrate foods consisted of the rhezdme of the fern (pteris aqualina) growing wild in large tracts, and various berries of the forest trees, as the hinau, tawa, and karaka, with the pith of the tree fern (mamaku) and a species of palm (nikau). In flesh foods, the rivers and sea were rich in fish and shell-fish, and the forests teemed with wild-fowl. There were no mammals with the exception of the Native dog and rat, both introduced by the Maoris, and two species of bats. Food was stored up in special food-houses by the various families to provide for the winter. Two meals a day was the number usually indulged in.