2&3 cook's voyage to . feb. 



ears; also another sort which stick to the weeds; 

 with some other things, as sea-eggs, star-fish, &c. 

 several of which are peculiar to the place. The 

 natives likewise sometimes brought us very fine cray- 

 fish, equal to our largest lobsters, and cuttle-fish, 

 which they eat themselves. 



Insects are very rare. Of these, we only saw r two 

 sorts of dragon flies, some butterflies, small gras- 

 hoppers, several sorts of spiders, some small black 

 ants, and vast numbers of scorpion flies, with whose 

 chirping the woods resound. The only noxious one 

 is the sand-fly, very numerous here, and almost as 

 troublesome as the musquitoe ; for we found no 

 reptile here, except two or three sorts of small harm- 

 less lizards. * 



It is remarkable, that, in this extensive land, there 

 should not even be the traces of any quadruped, only 

 excepting a few rats, and a sort of fox-dog, which is 

 a domestic animal with the natives. 



Neither is there any mineral worth notice, but a 

 green jasper or serpent-stone, of which the New 

 Zealanders make their tools and ornaments. This 

 is esteemed a precious article by them; and they 

 have some superstitious notions about the method of 

 its generation, which we could not perfectly under- 

 stand. It is plain, however, that wherever it may be 

 found (which, they say, is in the channel of a large 

 river far to the southward), it is disposed in the earth 

 in thin layers, or, perhaps, in detached pieces, like 

 our flints; for the edges of those pieces, which have 

 not been cut, are covered with a whitish crust like 

 these. A piece of this sort was purchased, about 

 eighteen inches long, a foot broad, and near two 

 inches thick; which yet seemed to be only the frag- 

 ment of a larger piece. 



* In a separate memorandum-book, Mr. Anderson mentions the 

 monstrous animal of the lizard kind, described by the two boys 

 after they left the island. 



