604 Proceedings. 



Captain Gilbert Mair explained how native traditions had been 

 handed down, with the minutest details, for eight or nine hundred years. 

 He read a narrative illustrating this. 



At the invitation of the President, Captain Mair also read 

 an abstract of a paper compiled in 1852 by a number of the 

 oldest of the Morioris then living, dealing with the genealogy, 

 early history, &c, of their people. (Transactions, p. 156.) 



In the discussion which followed, Captain Mair mentioned that 

 originally the Morioris were quite a distinct race from the Maoris, but 

 that they appeared subseqently to have intermingled with the Maoris 

 and formed with them a mixed race, introducing into their own 

 language a proportion of Maori words. Some of the Morioris were of 

 opinion that their ancestors had come from the Bay of Islands in New 

 Zealand. There was no doubt that the Morioris were a most inoffensive 

 race — they actually attacked the first Maori invaders of their territory 

 with flax-stalks ! At the present time (1904) there were only six pure 

 Morioris surviving ; in 1903 there were eight. He urged that immediate 

 steps should be taken to secure photographs of the small remnant left. 



Captain Mair exhibited a skull of a Moriori slave who was killed in 

 1839 or 1840. 



Mr. A. H. Cockayne exhibited a photograph of a Chatham Island 

 native, taken by Dr. Cockayne, of Christchurch. 



Mr. H. H. Travers called attention to a paper read by him before 

 the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury in 1865 ("On the Chatham 

 Islands": Transactions, vol. i., pp. 119-127) embodying information 

 which he had obtained, during a personal visit to the Chatham Islands 

 in 1864, from the same source as that drawn upon by Mr. Shaud. 



Papers. — 1. " Eevision of the New Zealand Species of the 

 Genus Potamopyrgus, with a Description of a New Species,'' 

 by Henry Suter ; communicated by Mr. A. Hamilton. 

 (Transactions, p. 258.) 



2. "Report on the Mollusca collected by Messrs. Keith 

 Lucas and G. L. Hodgkin in Six Lakes of New Zealand," by 

 Henry Suter; communicated by Mr. A. Hamilton. (Trans- 

 actions, p. 233.) 



Popular Lecture: 5th October, 1904. 



A lecture on " The Art Workmanship of the Maori People " 

 was delivered by Mr. A. Hamilton, Director of the Colonial 

 Museum, Wellington, on Wednesday, the 5th October. 



The President, Professor Easterfield, occupied the chair. 



The lecture (which was illustrated by a series of specially 

 prepared lantern - slides) was open to the public. It was 

 listened to by a very large audience. 



A hearty vote of thanks, moved by Mr. Tregear and 

 seconded by Mr. Justice Chapman, was accorded to Mr. 

 Hamilton by acclamation. 



