326 Transactions. — Botany. 



noise that was not unpleasant. '^'- I have watched them 

 steadily for half an hour, and longer, and have never found 

 one of them to light on the flower, or the plant itself, to 

 rest. 



2. The Peickly Peae = Ojyuntia ficiis-indica, or Indian Fig. 



This fleshy plant of the Cactus family, which produces the 

 fruit known in the south of Europe as the Indian fig, has no 

 connections with the fig-tree, nor has the fruit with the fig. 

 Its origin is not Indian, hut American ; everything is erroneous 

 and ahsurd in this common name. (Just as in the case with 

 the former plant. Agave, which is no true aloe, neither does 

 it belong to the same order with the aloes.) However, since 

 Liuneus took his botanical name from it = Cactus ficus- 

 indica, afterwards connected with the genus Ojiuntia, it was 

 necessary to retain the specific name to avoid changes which 

 are a source of confusion, and to recall the popular denomina- 

 tion. 



This plant is well known in Napier, as well as in other 

 places in New Zealand, it having been early introduced (long 

 before this country became a British colony). It does not, 

 however, perfect its fruit here with us, although it does plenti- 

 fully at the north (Bay of Islands, &c.), the climate there 

 being warmer, and more suited to it.i My chief reason, how- 

 ever, for bringing it forward in this paper is to show the 

 extraordinary uses made of it, and of other closely-allied 

 species I in their native homes in South America ; and that 



* I had also often observed them dexterously performing the same 

 kind of feat with the flowers of the common honeysuckle (Loiiicera 

 periclynicnum, L.), only in this latter case the tube of the honeysuckle 

 is much more slender. At such times, too, I should be quietly seated ou 

 a low chair, with the woodbine spreading thickly around me, while of my 

 presence the moths seemed to take no notice, in their eagerness to collect 

 their food. 



t I may here give a little anecdote concerning the edible use of its 

 fruit here in New Zealand. It was in the winter season of 1842 when the 

 Antarctic Expedition (" Erebus " and " Terror"), under Sir James Ross, 

 was at anchor (wintering) in the Bay of Islands. One fine day Dr. (now 

 Sir J. D.) Hooker was on shore at Paihia, the Church Mission station, 

 where Dr. Andrew Sinclair, R.N. (afterwards Colonial Secretary), was then 

 residing, and I joined them. We soon concluded to go across to Waitangi 

 (where the treaty had been signed), about a mile and a half distant, in 

 my boat. On arriving there we strolled into the garden of the owner and 

 late occupier (Mr. Busby), and there on its raised boundary were several 

 large plants of the prickly pear, growing profusely and bearing much ripe 

 fruit. Dr. Sinclair, who had been in South America, was delighted at the 

 sight (fruit being scarce at that season in the Bay), and soon commenced 

 gathering and eating the "figs," to our (or, at least, to my) great aston- 

 ishment, as I had never seen them eaten before. I scarcely need add 

 that we two speedily joined him. 



I Upwards of forty species have been described, though with some 

 botanists several of them are deemed to be merely varieties. 



