Poe-Bird. New-Zealand.

The earliest c.18th engraving of a Tui shown sitting on a flowering branch of Fuschia excorticata, collected at Queen Charlotte Sound, where Cook stayed from 12 May to 6 June 1773.

Christened by Captain Cook the poi-bird, the tui is now widely known by its Māori name, although colonists often referred to it as the ‘parson bird’ on account of its white neck feathers and sermonising habits. Cook in 1773 described it thus:

‘The feathers of a fine mazarine blue…. Under its throat hang two little tufts of curled, snow-white feathers, called its poies, which being the Otaheitean word for ear-rings, occasioned our giving the name to the bird, which is not more remarkable for the beauty of its plumage than for the sweetness of its note. The flesh is also most delicious, and was the greatest luxury the woods afforded us.’

From the official British Admiralty sanctioned edition of the accounts of Cook’s second voyage and the first and most superior issue of this engraving.

Common name: Tui
Binomial name: Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae
First described: Gmelin 1788

References: Beddie 1381-52, p.269, Smithsonian, Foster Collection

From Cook’s, A Voyage Towards the South Pole, and Round the World, performed in His Majesty’s Ships the ‘Resolution’ and ‘Adventure’, In the Years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775.