518 Proceedings. 



specimens of A. a7istralis, and there is no suggestion that any specimen 

 of A. mtstralis has been discovered which truly answers to the description 

 of the A. mantdli of Bartlett. In any case, however, the general ac- 

 quiescence of ornithologists for the last thirty years in assigning the name 

 A. manteUi to the North Island kiwi should have been regarded by 

 Mr. Sharpe as an authority, if not a positive direction, for retaining it 

 when definitely separating the species. I cannot help expressing the 

 opinion that Sir Walter Bullcr should not readily have allowed his 

 judgment and skill as an ornithologist to be impeached, although the 

 result of the impeachment is to add one more to the list of species in 

 which his name will be handed down to posterity in a Latinized form. 

 In naming their discoveries, explorers, scientific or otherwise, are at times 

 capricious, and had any change of name been at all necessary a more 

 euphonious and characteristic substitute for A. mantelU could have been 

 devised than A. bnllcri. — The President commended to the careful 

 perusal of members Mr. Higginson's paper on " Sanitary Sewerage." 

 The future of Wellington could not be foretold, but they all hoped and 

 must assume that there would be a great increase of trade and popula- 

 tion ; and all works of a permanent nature ought to be constructed with 

 a proper regard to such increase. Unfortunately, any great reform was 

 often met with the objection which might be briefly put as " What we 

 have got is good enough for us: lot posterity look after itself." What 

 now existed as sewerage might even be good enough for the present, but 

 it certainly would not be enough for twenty years hence. He suggested, 

 however, that immediate reform was necessary. The difficulty to the 

 reformer lay in the ignorance of the average burgess of even elementary 

 science. He would listen to what you had to say of the importance of 

 reform, but you had an uncomfortable feeling that you might talk Greek 

 to him with the same effect. This difficulty must be met by pressing 

 the subject upon the people till they recognized its value ; and he urged 

 members of the Society, who were better able to appreciate the subject, 

 to assist in doing that. In conclusion, the President said he had not 

 ventured to give members a review of the history of science for the past 

 year, but would do so at the end of his term of office. 



Sir James Hector moved a hearty vote of thanks to the President for 

 his address. He expressed the pleasure it gave him to find the younger 

 members of the Society coming forward and taking their share in the 

 work. Judging by the address which they had just heard, the Society 

 would have no reason to regret having elected Mr. Brandon President. 

 Touching the paper on the Aptery.r, he was delighted to find legal 

 acumen brought to bear on the mysteries of science. What the President 

 had said would be read with great interest by naturalists, by some of 

 whom, no doubt, it would be resented, although on the whole it would 

 do good. Sir James went into the subject at length, and finally 

 expressed an opinion that Mr. Sharpe was not right in his contention 

 that the North Island kiwi had not previously been named, as, according 

 to Gould, IMr. Bartlett had founded A. viantclR not on a specimen 

 collected in the south by Mr. ]\Ianteli, as Mr. Sharpe suggests, but on an 

 imdescribed and unnamed specimen from the North Island which he 

 discovered in a private collection in England. 



Mr. Chapman seconded the motion for a vote of thanks. He said 

 that the kiwi in question was certainly known as " viantelli," and the 

 reason given for the alteration was a mere quibble. 



Mr. Maskell warmly supported the motion. With respect to the 

 Apteri/x biiUcri, he thought it was a question whether in any future Latin 

 dictionary schoolboys would not have to look out " Bidleri" and find it set 

 down as a word identifying any bird, beast, or fish found in New Zealand. 

 Sir Walter BuUer had so many things attached to him, and had received 

 so many evidences of the extreme appreciation of his Sovereign and 



