538 Proceedings. 



scientific treatises, but in none was any positive decision given. Now, 

 could a rainbow be seen reflected in the water? If not, why not ? If so, 

 at what angles must the rays strike the water after emergence from the 

 raindrops so as to produce on the eye exactly correct colours after the 

 double reflection, and perhaps quadruple refraction? Personally, he rather 

 thought that it could not be so reflected, but would like to hear what 

 more competent authorities could say on the point. With regard to lunar 

 rainbows, he could very well recollect seeing in Wellington on one night 

 in 1860, when a heavy dark cloud was rolling up from the south, a per- 

 fectly-formed arch on the cloud, but quite white and shining, without any 

 trace of colour. The moon at the time was quite or almost full. 



General Schaw was inclined to think that the reflection could not be 

 seen. In regard to what Mr. Harding had said of the reflection of the 

 moon, Ruskin stated that it was parallel on the water. 



Sir James Hector said the shape of the moon's reflection to the 

 eye depended on the state of the surface of the water. An absolutely 

 still surface would only reflect one image. The more agitated the sur- 

 face the wider the band of light owing to multiple reflection. 



Mr. Tregear, in referring to a remark by Mr. Harding " that artists 

 were often very incorrect, while poets were the more truthful in their 

 descriptions of nature," said that undoubtedly the higher poets were 

 wonderfully close observers of nature : indeed, the faculty of extraordinary 

 insight and observation was one of the proofs of artistic genius. He would 

 instance the remark of a farmer who said that he had been among English 

 woods all his life, but never noticed the intense blackness of the buds of 

 the ash until he read Tennyson's line, — 



As black as ash-buds in the front of March. 



He did not know if it had been before brought to the notice of the Society 

 that Shakspeare, in " Troilus and Cressida," had said, — 



My love is as the centre of the earth, 

 Drawing all things into it. 



This in a day when things were believed to fall by their own weight. 

 The poet thus in a few concise words anticipates the theory of gravita- 

 tion set forth years after by Newton. 



3. " On a New Insectivorous Plant in New Zealand," by 

 Sir W. Buller. {Transactions, p. 302.) 



Mr. Kirk said that insectivorous plants were generally known in New 

 Zealand. There were three or four different kinds, but he had not observed 

 the peculiar carnivorous properties mentioned in the one now described. 

 It was more frequent in the pitcher plants ; and he proceeded to describe, 

 in some detail, the existence of bladders in plants of this description. Sir 

 J. Hooker deserved the same honour as Mr. Darwin for his discovery in 

 this direction. 



Mr. Hudson and Sir James Hector had seen specimens of this fungus 

 near Wellington. 



Sir W. Buller said he was glad that Mr. Kirk had so readily accepted 

 his conclusions, seeing that he was an acknowledged authority on New 

 Zealand botany. He was pleased to hear that gentleman so unhesitat- 

 ingly affirm his belief that the fungus described by the author possessed 

 the power of assimilating the albumen contained in the bodies of the 

 insects, and applying the matter so absorbed to its own nourishment. 

 The other New Zealand plants mentioned by Mr. Kirk belonged, all of 

 them, to the family Droscraccce. The plants furnished with minute 

 bladders, of which he had given such interesting particulars, belonged to 

 a natural group, of which Mr. Darwin had given us a full account in his 

 work on " Insectivorous Plants." The curious thing about this one was, 

 as Mr. Kirk would admit, that it was a plant of an entirely different 



