Doctor to the Maoris.

PEter Henry Buck was born in 1880, at Urenui, North Taranaki, the son of William Henry Buck, a veteran of the Maori wars, and the chieftainess Ngarongo-ki-tua. His race-blend gave him, for one thing, one may suppose, his love of adventure and for another the poetic trend of mind and the eloquent tongue that are the hereditary gifting of the Maori. As a youth he had his sound schooling at famous Te Aute College, and he continued his studies into the University. His taste was for the medical profession, and in that excellent school, Otago University, he obtained his M.D. diploma. He was for a time house surgeon in Dunedin Hospital, and then, after the late Sir Maui Pomare had initiated the beneficent crusade of health and new life for the Maori people, young Te Rangihiroa became a health officer among his mother's race, holding this position for three years, 1905–8. He married in 1905 Margaret Wilson, of Milton, Otago, and that lady has been a true co-partner with him in his varied career. While he was on the fighting fronts in the Great War she was constantly engaged in hospital and other useful work for the New Zealand soldiers, and since then she has assisted him in his anthropological research duties in the Pacific. A lady of fine courage; she fearlessly toiled beside him in the smallpox epidemic among the Maoris in North Auckland when he became a Government health officer.