A plate from A history of the birds of New Zealand by Walter
Buller, showing a pair of huia perched on a branch, the female
to the left (marked with a small female symbol), the male
(marked with a small male symbol) to the right. A Dutch artist,
J.G. Keulemans, was responsible for the illustrations in all of
Buller's books. His illustrations are remarkably lifelike
considering he never stepped foot in New Zealand, and rarely saw
living examples of the birds he drew. Today many New Zealanders
would undoubtedly find Sir Walter Buller's comment that 'the
flesh of the pukeko [is equal] to that of the best English game'
distasteful. But Buller, the author of A history of the birds of
New Zealand, was not out of step with his contemporaries. At the
time his book was first published in the early 1870s legislation
focused on protecting introduced species over natives. Buller's
work was viewed by many of his contemporaries as a record of the
country's native birds before they inevitably died out. Instead,
the criticis