10 Proceedings. 



MANAWATU PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



First Meeting : 16th March. 1911. 

 Captain Hewitt, R.N., in the. chair. 



Lecture. — " Ramblings and a little Philosophy." By H. B. Drew. 



The lecturer gave interesting reminiscences of a two-years cycling tour on th<- 

 (Jontinent of Europe and in the Holy Land, and illustrated them by lantern-slides 

 from sketches and photographs by Mr. G. E. Woolley. He took his hearers — mostly by 

 by-ways — through parts of Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, and Germany, 

 as well as Jerusalem and its neighbourhood, giving his impressions of the cultivation 

 of the land and the condition of the peasantry in the different countries. He was much 

 struck, he said, by the great cordiality with which he and his companions were received 

 throughout their travels, especially in Austria and Germany, and by the high opinion 

 apparently everywhere entertained of England and English honour. 



Second Meeting : 20th April. 1911. 



Mr. J. E. Vernon, M.A., in the chair. 



Papers. — 1. " The Anatomical Structures of the New Zealand Pipe- 

 raceae." By Miss A. F. Ironsides, M.A. 



This paper gives in full detail the results of an examination of the anatomical 

 structure of the adult plant and seedling of the New Zealand representatives of the 

 Piperaceae, and discusses the bearing of the facts on the relationships of the order and 

 on the phylogeny of the Angiosperms generally. 



2. " Some New Zealand Moths." By the Rev. A. Doull, M.A. 



Illustrated by a collection of about forty species showing curious individual varia- 

 tions, including Bityea defigurata, found only at Palmerston North, in the North Island. 



3. " Moose and Wapiti in New Zealand." By R. Henry. 



The writer stated that these animals, which had been brought from Canada, where 

 they had abundance of grain and sunshine, enabling them in the summer to put on 

 sufficient fat to carry them through the winter, while the weaklings were carried off by 

 the wolves, had been turned out in a valley in the Sounds, where there was neither grass 

 nor sunshine, and almost perpetual rain, with sides so steep that it was hardly possible 

 for them to get out of it. 



4. " Pike as Health Officers." By R. Henry. 



Showing by an illustration in the Sporting and Dramatic News, and by statistic* 

 from English papers, that pike by structure and habit are adapted for the capture of 

 sickly fish only, and are therefore most useful as health officers, and that (he same func- 

 tion is discharged in New Zealand by eels, and probably also by shags. 



