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Kastor on 11 February 1877 and arrived on the Tararua, following stopovers in Suez, Ceylon and
Melbourne, at Bluff on 18 April, Port Chalmers on the 20th and Lyttelton on the 22nd. 14
His stay, however, eventually became twelve years in total as he explored throughout New
Zealand with his trusty side-kick Caesar, the ‘Wonderful Dog’. Reischek made two excursions
while under the employ of Haast, one to Lake Brunner via Porter’s and Arthur’s Pass to relieve
the boredom of his day-to-day life, the other to the glaciers and mountains around Rakaia in the
Southern Alps with Haast himself. Once he had finished his contract at the museum in
Christchurch he then proceeded to the North Island and soon began work at the Auckland
Museum and later the Wanganui Museum, whilst also working for various private collectors and
making contributions to the Otago Museum. Between 1879 and 1888 Reischek made a number of
excursions in and around Northland, Auckland, the Waitakere Ranges, Coromandel, Waikato,
Fiordland, Dusky and Chalky Sounds, as well as the Hen and Chicken, Little Barrier and Great
Barrier Islands, and the subantarctic islands to the south of New Zealand. 15 In his home of
Austria, however, his greatest achievement was seen as his being one of the few Europeans to be
allowed into the Maori stronghold of the King Movement in the Waikato in 1882, an area known
as the King Country, which barred Europeans and provided a refuge for ‘renegade’ Maori
fighters. 16 On 20 February 1889, after continued delays, Reischek finally departed New Zealand
for Sydney on the Waihora 17 for a stopover of several weeks before eventually arriving in Vienna
on 15 April. Among the overestimated 16,000 items that Reischek junior claimed his father
death of his patron five years before he returned to Vienna (Heger, “Nekrolog”, 409). Furthermore, King states one of
the main factors in the ease and speed Reischek made the decision to leave his wife of two years in Vienna was in
order to run away from marriage troubles and, in particular, his mother-in-law (King, Collector, 31-34). However, as
there are so many variations in interpretations and facts, it is impossible to say with certainty what really happened
(Kolig, Umstrittene Würde, 20-24, 34f.). The tragedy for Reischek is that he did not return in time, as it is made clear
in a letter from Hochstetter in March 1883: “[…] für mich werden alle Ihre ethnographischen Sammlungen, die
Mumien und Ihre Aufzeichnungen über Maorisagen etc.etc. von größtem Interesse sein. Hoffentlich werden Sie all
das für unser Museum reservieren. Ich habe Sie schon sicher in diesem Jahre zurückerwartet. Direktor Steindachner
möchte schon lange die Kuratorenstelle am zoologischen Museum neu besetzen aber wir wollten warten, bis Sie
zurückkommen. Hoffentlich wird das nun bald der Fall sein” (cited in: Aubrecht, “Andreas Reischek”, 33).
14
The Southland Times [=ST] 19 April (1877): 2; ODT 21 April (1877): 2; The Lyttelton Times [=LT] 23 April
(1877): 2.
15
The exact dates of his individual trips to Little Barrier and surrounding islands and the number of excursions made
by Reischek have often been a subject of confusion, as they are contradicted in the various accounts (see King,
Collector, 175; Westerskov, “Reischek’s Ornithological Exploration”, 283-85; Andreas Reischek, “Meine Reisen auf
Neu-Seeland”, in: MKKGG 33 (1890): 610-27).
16
Reischek first attempted to enter the King Country in 1880 but failed (Andreas Reischek, “Zwölf Jahre auf Neu-
Seeland: Blätter aus meinem Tagebuche: 1. Theil. Hinreise (im Jahre 1877) und Aufenthalt bis zum Jahre 1882”, in:
Jugendheimat 6 (1892): 75).
17
The New Zealand Herald [=NZH] 21 Feb (1889): 4.
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