Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
wattlebird , Heteralocha acutirostris,endemic toNew Zealand 'sNorth Island butextinct since the early twentieth century.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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A Māori carved waka huia (treasure box), and a silver inkwell, dated 1702, which once belonged to Queen Anne, gifted to the Court by the Privy Council in 2004.
ScreenTalk 2010
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A Māori carved waka huia (treasure box), and a silver inkwell, dated 1702, which once belonged to Queen Anne, gifted to the Court by the Privy Council in 2004.
ScreenTalk 2010
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Onto this was fastened the feathers, the most prized ones being those of the huia and kiwi especially the rare white albino kiwi.
Cloak Of Feathers Ivan Donn Carswell 2008
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Onto this was fastened the feathers, the most prized ones being those of the huia and kiwi especially the rare white albino kiwi.
Archive 2008-01-01 Ivan Donn Carswell 2008
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The North Island kokako is an endemic wattlebird whose close relatives North and South Island saddleback (Philesturnus carunculatus rufusater and P. carunculatus carunculatus) and the huia (Heteralocha acutirostris EX) are now, respectively, limited to predator-free islands or extinct.
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Y otras veces por no enojarme ni desconcertarme con él no le respondia nada, sino huia dél '
Fray Luis de León A Biographical Fragment James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
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Feathers from the huia bird - last sighted in 1907 - were traditionally used for the adornment of Maori chiefs.
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Bidding for the huia feather was estimated to reach between $NZ500 ($404) and $NZ700 ($565) when it went under the hammer at Webb's Auction House last week, the Dominion Post said.
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But her hopes of picking up the prized huia feather for the sort of money such items have fetched in the past on Trade Me were dashed in the atmosphere of the live auction.
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The feather of an extinct New Zealand bird -- the huia -- has been sold at auction for a record NZ $8,400 (about US $6,000).
bilby commented on the word huia
A New Zealand bird, probably extinct at the turn of the 20th century.
December 31, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word huia
"The huia bird was once prized for its white-tipped black tail-feathers. They were particularly fashionable in Europe as adornments for hats at the turn of the twentieth century—so much so that by the 1920s, no more huias were left to be shot and plucked.... Students at Hastings Boys High School in Hastings, New Zealand, wondered if scientists could bring back the huia, the school's emblem."
—Richard Stone, Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant (Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Publishing, 2001), 166
See also usage on tui.
September 22, 2008