638 Proceedings. 



trical tension between the upper and lower strata, if some of 

 the intermediate strata have become so dry as to cease to be 

 conductors, and so are unable to reHeve this tension quietly 

 and gradually. This state of electric tension at the earth's 

 surface would, by induction, cause a contrary electric condition 

 in the lower strata of the atmosphere, and the peculiar meteoro- 

 logical effects referred to would be experienced. When the 

 electric tension between the upper and inferior strata became 

 so great that a subterranean electric discharge took place 

 between them, equilibrium would be restored and the atmo- 

 spheric disturbance due to induction would cease. The sub- 

 terranean electric discharge would cause so great a shock as 

 to produce the effects of the earthquake, probably by setting 

 in action the potential energy stored up by the gradual cool- 

 ing of the earth, and tending to produce shrinkage, crushing, 

 and crumpling, and so unequal stress. Owing to the great con- 

 tortions to which the strata have been subjected in the greater 

 part of New Zealand, the conditions are perhaps not to be 

 found here which would give rise to the phenomenon of such 

 a subterraneous electric disturbance as above suggested ; but 

 in the great wheat-growing plains of California, where the 

 premonitory atmospheric warning of an impending earthquake 

 has been noticed, they probably do exist. It is possible that 

 they may also exist in the great Canterbury plains, and it 

 would be of interest to note whether any such premonitory 

 symptoms are ever observed there previous to earthquake 

 shocks. 



Ornithology. 



I would remark, with reference to ornithology, that in the 

 early spring of three successive years — 1888-89-90 — Limestone 

 Island, in Whangarei Harbour, was visited by a pair of small 

 birds which I think I have identified as Ptilotis chrysops, or 

 the yellow-faced honey-eater, described in Gould's " Birds of 

 Australia," vol. i., pp. 521, 522. The birds sang very sweetly for 

 a week or two each year in a large willow-tree close to the 

 house in which I was living, and seemed to have the intention 

 of building there ; but I fancy they were deterred from doing 

 so by the disturbance caused by a swing which hung from a 

 limb of the tree. The shaking of the tree caused by the swung, 

 and the laughter and merriment of the swinging children, pro- 

 bably scared them aw^ay. My ornithological instincts were 

 not acute enough to harden my heart and induce me either to 

 taboo the swing or to shoot the birds, so that I cannot be per- 

 fectly certain as to the identification ; but, as I observed these 

 birds carefully with binoculars, I have little doubt that they 

 were a pair of this rather common honey-eater of New South 

 Wales, which for some reason migrated to New Zealand to 



