Tahiti rail plantations. Its diet appears to have consisted mainly of insects and occasionally copra (coconut meat). The extinction of the Tahiti rail was probably due to predation by humans and introduced cats and rats. It appears to have become extinct some time after 1844 on Tahiti, and perhaps as late as the 1930s on Mehetia. The Tahiti rail was found on the South Pacific island of Tahiti (part of the Society Islands archipelago) by naturalists who were part of the British explorer James Cook's second voyage around the world (1772–1775). The bird was illustrated by Georg Forster, who accompanied his father,
Joseph Smith (explorer) Joseph Smith (explorer) Joseph Smith was a British fur trader and explorer working for the Hudson's Bay Company. He was one of the first Europeans to explore the interior of what later became Canada from Hudson Bay. Smith died June 1765 en route to York Factory from the Saskatchewan country. Smith’s explorations played an important role in opening up the interior of western Canada to European trade, and his journals provide one of the earliest accounts of Cree life. Joseph Smith arrived at Hudson Bay as a labourer in 1753. Three years later he was sent inland with Joseph Waggoner