564 Proceedings. 



about fishes, which, though no doubt familiar enough to naturalists, were 

 not commonly known. The herring and the pilchard, he said, were 

 so closely allied that the external resemblance might deceive an expert, 

 yet they differed widely in their habits. The herring glued her ova to 

 stone and seaweed at the bottom, where it batched; but the pilchard 

 discharged hers in the open water, to fl^at to the surface and Vie batched 

 by the sun. The fishes themselves were so much alike that the usual 

 test was to balance doubtful fish by the dorsal fin. If the head went up 

 it was a pilchard, if the tail went up it was a herring. Pilchards were 

 abundant off our coasts, but New Zealand had no herring. The flat 

 fishes, he explained, started in life symmetrical and swimming upright, 

 like other fishes. While still young they took to deeper waters, sunk, 

 ard lay at the bottom, turning to one side or the other. Deformation 

 gradually set in, the upper side darkened, the eye underneath, being use- 

 less in its place, forced itself through the skull and came out on the 

 upper side. A distinction be ween the sole and flounder tribe was 

 that the sole lay with the left side and the flounder with the right 

 side uppermost. A curious distinction between the English and New 

 Zealand mackerel was that the southern fish was provided with a swim- 

 bladder, which was absent in the English species. But the distinction 

 was not a matter altogether of northern and southern distribution, for 

 the only other mackerel besides that of New Zealand possessing the 

 swim-bladder was found in the Black Sea. 



A letter was received from Mr. J. T. Stewart calling atten- 

 tion to the fact that in boring in the Wanganm district for 

 artesian water the water was obtained from below the papa 

 rock. (Transactions, p. 451.) 



Sir James Hector remarked that if thh was the case it was a most 

 important thing for the whole district. 



Sir James Hector exhibited a preparation of the head and 

 beak of a great octopus. 



This was taken from a specimen captured at Island Bay, being the 

 second specimen of the species found in that locality. The biggest of 

 these could sweep into his ravenous maw any living creature within a 

 cirole a chain in diameter. 



Specimens of some large Fiji chestnuts, about which very 

 little is known, were exhibited. 



Thikd Meeting : 5th November, 1901. 

 Mr. G. V. Hudson, President, in the chair. 

 New Member.— Mx. T. L. Buick. 



Mr. Martin Chapman was renominated to represent the 

 Society on the Board of the New Zealand Institute. 



A letter was read from the Secretary of the Canterbury 

 Institute inviting members of the Wellington Philosophical 

 Society to attend a garden party now being arranged to wel- 

 come the members of the British Antarctic expedition on their 

 arrival in Lyttelton. 



