Wellington Philoso2)hical Society. 657 



General Schaw thought it was rather a disadvantage that there were 

 so many museums scattered throughout the colony ; it was a pity there was 

 not one good central museum. He did not agree with Mr. IMaskell about 

 not sending Home specimens for description. If some of the objects 

 mentioned by Mr. Travers had not been sent Home, we might not now 

 know that such things existed here. He rather favoured the sending of 

 them to England. 



Mr. Hudson, in reply, thanked the members for the interest they had 

 taken in his paper. In connection with Sir J. Hector's remarks, no one 

 could appreciate the value of what had been done more than he did him- 

 self. At the same time, there remained an enormous amount of scientific 

 work which required immediate attention, and the object of his paper 

 was to bring some of this work under notice. Dr. Sharp stated as his 

 opinion that in England, where the fauna had been worked at by 

 hundreds of skilled collectors and observers, there was not yet a really 

 good collection of British insects. Bearing this in mind, we could hardly 

 claim to have anything at all approaching completeness in New Zealand. 

 He considered Mr. Tregear's work especially valuable, as it was instru- 

 mental in preserving languages and traditions which would otherwise be 

 completely lost. With regard to the fossils, he did not wish to under- 

 value their importance, but merely to point out that they could wait for 

 a time, whilst the living organisms required immediate attention. As to 

 Mr. Maskell's remarks with reference to the sending of insects to Europe, 

 he would like to point out that Mr. Maskell knew so much about the 

 CoccidiC that it was quite unnecessary for him to send specimens away. 

 He (Mr. Maskell) could tell at once whether a scale-insect had or had 

 not been already described. It was quite evident to any one who read 

 the current entomological literature that Mr. Maskell was the world's 

 authority on these insects. With other entomologists, whose studies 

 embraced groups of far larger dimensions, it was absolutely necessary for 

 accurate work that they should seek assistance from naturalists in 

 Europe and elsewhere. 



2. "On Old Maori Civilisation," by E. Tregear, F.E.G.S. 

 {Transactions, p. 533.) 



Mr. Harding said that Mr. Tregear's idea of the decadence of the 

 Maori race from a higher state was a suggestive one. In his own paper, 

 published in the last volume, he (Mr. Harding) had inferred something 

 of the same kind from the high literary quality of their traditional lore. 



Sir James Hector said that Mr. Tregear's paper was most interest- 

 ing. He had himself always been of opinion that the Maoris of former 

 days must have been acquainted with a written language, as otherwise 

 their powerful development of the logical faculty would be incompre- 

 hensible. 



Mr. Travers, as bearing on the subject of this paper, exhibited a 

 portrait of the Maori chief Rangihaeata, painted by the late Mp,jor Von 

 Tempsky. The natives recognised the portrait by the tattooing on the 

 face. 



General Schaw said that the subject was most interesting ; it was 

 not altogether remarkable that the Maoris possessed arts at one time 

 which were now lost to them. The Cingalese had lost arts in the same 

 way. We saw it in our own day : people who had civilisation, but who 

 settled down in remote localities, became rough and uncivilised. 



Mr. Tregear, in reply, said that he believed the tattoo-markings were 

 used in the Treaty of Waitangi — the natives were identified by the tattoo- 

 marks. It was not certain that the other islands knew about writing ; they 

 used a stamp — in fact, a sort of type. 



Mr. F. Huddleston gave a description of some rock paintings 

 42 



