Wellington Philosophical Society. 571 



combination of circumstances relieves them from any very de- 

 structive enemies. I have seen pilchards in many places, and always 

 wondered at their immense numbers and where they came from, 

 for wherever I have seen them they seem to have thousands of 

 enemies who could easily catch them. I dipped a baker's basket in 

 the sea off Queenscliffe and got it half-full of pilchards, while the air 

 was alive with birds and the water thick with porpoises and all 

 sorts of fish following them. Surely they must have some peaceful 

 places to breed in or they could not spare such losses without 

 extinction. Cook Strait may be one of those. They represent the 

 Home herring, and the herring is an old acquaintance of the 

 salmon ; therefore if the salmon have not been tried in Queen Char- 

 lotte Sound it might be a good plan to try some when you have the 

 salmon, for they might, meet with some favourable conditions that we do 

 not undtrstand. I have not seen pilchards on this southern coast, where 

 we put most of the salmon, but Mr. Sutherland says that they come into 

 Milford. It might also be a good plan to try a few salmon on this west 

 coast if they never have been tried there, for there is great variety of 

 conditii ns bttween such rivers as the Hollyford and tho-e coming into 

 the heads of the sounds. The temperature may be of great importance 

 to give the young ones a start ; and though there is a warm current 

 coning down the coast the heads of the sounds are often frozen in 

 winter. I think that owing to the quantity of food that sometimes 

 comes in it is far the best coast for fish ; but the rain brings a colouring 

 matter out of the bush that darkens the water, and I think the fish do 

 not like it, because it is only when the water clears that the shoals of 

 migratory fish come in. However, this dark water is always much colder 

 than the clear s a water, and that may be why the fish cislike it. 



2. Vegetable Caterpillar. — I exhibit an aweto or vegetable caterpillar 

 in a tube. Sometimes live ones are plentiful here in the spring about 

 the roots of the Veronica hedges, but they do Dot appear to grow fungi 

 every year, for lately 1 cannot find one m that state, thougu the first 

 years we were here they were plentiful, yet we saw no live ones. 

 The one I exhibit is a fine big one, and was very lively when I got it, so I 

 put it in the tube. I exhibit it now to show how fond it must be of grow- 

 ing fungi when it will grow it in a spirit-jar. When the fungus stats to 

 grow in ihe ground it seems as if the caterpillar had laid itself out for it, 

 for it often forms a cavity around its head as if to accommodate the 

 fungus, and I would not wonder if they are friendly relations instead of 

 enemies. If they ever do turn into moths it is curious that I have not 

 seen any of them wnen I can see all the others so readily. I do not 

 know what caterpillar the moth breeds from. I have tried to nurse the 

 live caterpillars into moths, but they take so long that I have never 

 succeeded. Thev have grown fungus several times, until I began to 

 think that that was the destiny of all of them, but I cannot see how the 

 fungus could lay caterpillars' eggs. 



Sir James Hector remarked that the " Picton In rring " spawned 

 from twenty to thirty miles off the co-ist of New South Whiles. Io was a 

 true pilchard ; it was not a herring. There was no herring in these 

 waters. It would be a valuable achievement if the herring could be 

 introduced. 



Mr. H. N. McL o 1 said he saw the fish in ques'ion at Picton a week 

 ago. Tiny were in such numbers that they ma le the water phosphores- 

 cent as fa.r as the eye could reach. 



Sir James Hector said the fish had put in an early appea>ance. 

 There were no fish in these seas which deposited their eggs, as the 

 herring did, at the t>ott m of the Sf a. The reason, he thought, was the 

 absence of such natural banks as ex ended from Englaud to Denmark, 

 and the acclimatisation of the herun^, desirable as it was, would ptobably 

 on this account be a matter of great difficulty. 



