Oliver. — Vegetation of the Kennadec Islands. 



125 



Neither a drougiit nor a hurricane was experienced during my stay- 

 on Sunday Island, though both are known to occur there. On one occa- 

 sion, according to Mrs. T. Bell, who has lived on Sunday Island for the 

 past thirty years, no rain fell for a period of five months ; while hun-icanes 

 have visited the island about nine times since 1878. The effect of a hurri- 

 cane is to be seen in one place in Denham Bay, where every tree in its path 

 is blown down. In the forest generally a leaning tree here and there, and 

 the prostrate habit of the large trees of Metrosideros villosa on the ridges, 

 are the only signs of the efiect of hurricanes. The trees affected are usually 

 leaning in a northerly direction — that is, away from the qiiarter (south- 

 east) whence the hurricanes are said invariably to blow. 



The temperature during the nine months, February to October, 1908, 

 varied between the extreme limits of 8-7° C. on the 4th August and 29-4° C. 

 on the 1st February, though days hotter than this occurred in January 

 before regular observations were taken. A note in my diary shows a maxi- 

 mum reading of 31-7° C. for the 29th January. 



The rainfall is distributed fairly evenly^ throughout the year, and for 

 the nine months totalled 1,716 mm. In cloudy and rainy weather a mist 

 continually hangs about the hilltops, hence the upper portion of the island 

 receives a considerable amount of moisture more than the lower-lying 

 ground. As a consequence, the upper forest of Sunday Island is quite 

 different from the lower, though the one imperceptibly passes over to the 

 other at an altitude of 200 m. to 300 m. 



Calm days are rare, and the wind often blows with great violence. On 

 the 2nd April no horizontal movement of the air was recorded by the anemo- 

 meter ; on the 9th March the instrument registered 1,087 km. 



On 76 out of 274 days covered by the nine months during wliich read- 

 ings were taken the air was saturated. The driest day was the 3rd Feb- 

 ruary, when the degree of relative humidity was 51. 



The amount of cloudiness (observations ta-ken at 9 a.m.) averaged 0-6 

 of the visible sky\ 



I give two tables showing the weather-conditions at Denham Bay, 

 Sunday Island, for 1908. The observations were taken by Mr. C. E. Warden, 

 but I am entirely responsible for the figures as they appear here corrected 

 and tabulated. Table I shows the weather month by month, while Table II 

 shows the duration of each kind of weather. 



Table I. 



