486 Transactions. — MisccUancous. 



spots) stand a large number of cabbage-trees (Cordylme aus- 

 f rails), the tii-tree of the Maori; but generally singly and 

 scattered far apart. These often bear only a single head of 

 long, narrow, harsh leaves at the top of their tall slender stems, 

 somewhat resembling a huge coarse mop ; but sometimes they 

 are slightly branched, their branches also only bearing a 

 similar tuft of leaves at their tips : hence the amount of shade 

 given by them when the sun is shining is but small, and of 

 course the shadow moves around the tree according to the 

 position of the sun in the sky. The sheep in the summer 

 season — especially just before they are shorn, when their wool 

 is thick, long, and heavy on them, and the sun is very hot on 

 those plains — seek tlie scanty shade of the cabbage-trees ; 

 and I have often noticed a ewe and her lamb cuddled together 

 in the small shaded spot, and by-and-by, as the shadow from 

 the tree is moved, they also move with it around the tree. I 

 have observed three such movements made in a few hours. 



7. On the Dexterity and Industry displayed by JVood Bats 

 or Mice in their extracting the Kernels of Small Nuts 

 (Stones of Fruits) for Food. 



Wandering in the neighbouring forest, I have been amazed 

 at seeing the great number of empty shells of the nuts or 

 stones of the fruits idrupa) of the black-pine tree, the miro of 

 the Maoris {Podocai-jnis ferriiglnea), strewed about on the 

 ground. All, too, had been completely cleaned from their 

 fleshy exterior, which is by no means a pleasant or easy job 

 (as I have found from experience), owing to its extreme sticki- 

 ness, so closely adhering to one's fingers that soap will 

 scarcely remove it. Those nut-shells had all been perforated 

 at their hilum (their softer or thinner part where all alike was 

 hard) in order to extract the small kernel, the little circular 

 hole being about -^^i^n. diameter. To gnaw away the hard 

 shell sufficiently to get at, or to get out, the very small kernel 

 must have been a work of incessant labour to the little animal 

 — especially as it only works by night — increased from the 

 small size and semi-orbicular shape of the nut itself (some- 

 what resembling a small cherry-stone), which must also have 

 been securely held between its fore-paws to enable it to do so. 



In one part of this wood near the rivulet was a little 

 raised, dry, clear-topped mossy spot, extending a few leet each 

 way, such small hillocks being not unfrequent in the hilly and 

 much-broken woods (and just such a spot as would serve 

 nicely for a small picnic party, with the high and robust 

 umbrageous trees around it) ; and here especially the shells 

 were very thickly strewed — much more so than around about 

 among the ferns and herbs and low shrubs in the damper 

 j)arts of the wood, where, too, the earth was bare in many 



