Also waika. [Maori, so named from its cry.] The native name for the flightless rails Ocydromus australis and O. brachypterus of New Zealand. Also called weka rail.
1845. E. J. Wakefield, Adv. New Zealand, II. iv. 95. Two young weka, or wood-hens, about as large as sparrows.
1852. Zoologist, X. 3400. The eggs of the Weka (Ocydromus), obtained in the Middle Island, New Zealand.
1873. Ibis, Ser. III. (1874), IV. 97. Wood or Maori Hen. Weka.
1906. Westm. Gaz., 20 Jan., 9/2. The weka rails are also flightless.
1914. H. A. Strong, in Chambers’s Jrnl., Nov., 751/1. The weka, on the contrary, is very common throughout the New Zealand bush, and is well known to all who have camped out there.
