724 Proceedings. 



Mr. Colenso very intinjately indeed, and during the whole of his (Mr. 

 Harding's) residence in Wellington — nearly nine years — he had been in 

 very close and intimate correspondence with him. He could fully indorse 

 what Sir James Hector had said about Mr. Colenso's enormous industry 

 and great gifts. He believed that every volume of the " Transactions 

 of the New Zealand Institute" had contained valuable contributions 

 from the hand of Mr. Colenso. In the firsc volume would be found two 

 papers contributed by him by special request. One was on the aboriginal 

 natives and the other was on the botany of New Zealand. These 

 papers, he might say, would in themselves be sufficient to make the 

 reputation of a scientific man for industrious investigation and scientitic 

 knowledge. In regard to the New Testament printed by ]\Ir. Colenso, he 

 (Mr. Harding), as a practical printer, thought it was one of the most 

 wonderful productions that had ever issued from a printing press, when 

 they considered the imperfect outfit with which Mr. Colenso was pro- 

 vided. And he believed that Mr. Colenso learned the art of bookbinding 

 before he left London, in order that he might complete the works which 

 he printed. When Mr. Colenso's book " Fifty Years ago in New Zealand " 

 reached England Mr. William Blades, author of the " Life of Caxton," 

 wrote an article on it for the Printers' Register under the title of "A 

 New Zealand Caxton." As to the Maori Lexicon, Mr. Colenso did not 

 look upon it as completed, because he had not written a fair copy of the 

 manuscript. But his rough manuscript was as good as most of the fair 

 copy that passed into a printer's hands. Mr. Harding concluded by ex- 

 pressing the hope that the Government would be public-spirited enough 

 to put the work of printing the lexicon in hand, and so prevent the loss 

 of the life-work of one of the greatest men they had had in New 

 Zealand. 



Mr. W. T. L. Travers spoke of the enormous diligence shown by Mr. 

 Colenso in his investigation of the natural history of the colony. 



Sir James Hector said Mr. Colenso had a great controversy with 

 the late Sir Richard Owen as to whether or not he was the first European 

 discoverer of the moa as part of the fauna of New Zealand. Mr. Colenso 

 claimed that he was the first person to bring before the notice of 

 Europeans the recent existence of these great birds in New Zealand 

 as part of the fauna of the country. It was on that account that his 

 name was received with such great favour at Home when he was elected 

 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Iiondon. The controversy ended in its 

 being shown that Mr. Colenso appreciated the nature of the gigantic 

 bones of birds that had been discovered here before they were sent to 

 England. 



Sir Walter Buller said he visited Mr. Colenso in 1886 before he (Sir 

 Walter) went to England. Mr. Colenso did not then mention the loss of 

 any part of the manuscript of the lexricon. He (Sir Walter) thought the 

 missing letters must have been recovered, because there were no empty 

 pigeon holes at that time in the room in which the manuscript was kept. 

 Sir Walter went on to mention a letter he had received from Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, in which the writer spoke of IMr. Colenso as doing good sound 

 work in philology — work that would live. 



Papers. — 1. " On New Zealand Galaxidce," by F. E. 

 Clarke. (Transactions, p. 78.) 



2. " On Exocoetus ilma," by F. E. Clarke. (Transactions, 

 p. 92.) 



3. " On Girclla multilineatus (the Mangrove Fisli)," by 

 F. E. Clarke. {Transactions, p. 96.) 



