662 Proceedings. 



summer temperature in those latitudes. This would doubtless have 

 caused great annual migrations of such animals as the mammoth, 

 which would have found their feeding-grounds nearer the poles in the 

 summer, and would have been obliged to travel away from the poles in 

 the winter. We may well imagine that irregularities in the seasons 

 would have been even more marked during the glacial period than they 

 are now, and that herds of migrating animals might be overtaken and 

 destroyed by a sudden setting-in of winter, or by great floods caused by 

 melting snow in summer and autumn. Darwin, in his Voyage of the 

 "Beagle," mentions the destruction of great numbers of animals overtaken 

 by an early setting-in of winter on the eastern slopes of the Andes when 

 migrating towards the pampas, their winter habitat. Some such vicissi- 

 tude may probably account for the frozen mammoths now found in Siberia. 

 We know that within the arctic circle the ground is now frozen so deeply 

 during winter that only the surface is thawed during the short summer, 

 and yet this surface supports vegetation. Animals may have been over- 

 whelmed by and buried in floods of liquid mud during the glacial age, and 

 so deeply embedded that the mass would have been frozen up and pre- 

 served until a river, cutting through the deposit, exposed the entombed 

 animals in the river-banks, where they are now found. 



Mr. Tregear was sorry his paper had provoked such bitter comment. 

 The paper, he considered, was as original as most papers of the kind are. 

 Hedisclaimed any intention of annoying any one, and especially any desire 

 to sneer at Professor Sayce. Sir James Hector had the right to discredit 

 myths, but he must surely allow that myths are valuable in imparting a 

 knowledge of history, and if the subject is worthy of human thought it is 

 worth bringing before the Society. 



2. " Some Curiosities of Bird-life," by Sir W. L. Buller, 

 K.C.M.G., D.Sc, F.R.S. (Transactions, p. 134.) 



3. " On the Wetas, a Group of Orthopterous Insects in- 

 habiting New Zealand : with Descriptions of Two New 

 Species," by Sir W. L. Buller. (Transactions, p. 143.) 



Mr. Travers said, in regard to Sir W. Buller's remarks about the injury 

 done to the native birds, &c, by the introduction of polecats, stoats, and 

 weasels, it was not so much the fault of the Government — they were intro- 

 duced as the natural enemy of the rabbit, and no doubt it was a mistake 

 to bring them here. The ferret is not so dangerous, and is really not 

 much objected to, but the destructive habits of the stoat and weasel are 

 well known. They have left the districts where rabbits abound for places 

 where they can get the birds and birds' eggs. In Nelson they did con- 

 siderable damage. With regard to the weta, there was one that he did 

 not see among the collection on the table : he had obtained one himself, 

 and the antenna? were llin. long, and this was, perhaps, because their 

 sight was so defective. 



Mr. Harding agreed with what the author said regarding stoats and 

 weasels. He had seen in Mr. Colenso's collection a much larger weta 

 than any now exhibited. He did not think they were quite harmless. 



Sir W. Buller, in reply, said he agreed with Mr. Travers that the re- 

 markably long and sensitive antenna? possessed by the different species of 

 Macropathns, all of which, so far as he was aware, inhabit caves, were 

 specially useful as feelers to those dwellers in the dark. He had carefully 

 examined the specimens, and, although the visual organs were, perhaps, 

 imperfect, it could not be said that those wetas were blind, as is un- 

 doubtedly the case with some other cave insects. The eyes, however, 

 have a very different appearance from those of the tree-wetas, Deinacrida 

 and Hemideina. There are probably other species not yet described — for 

 example, the alpine form exhibited by Mr. Hudson that evening, and 



