CoLENSO. — Presidential Address. 141 



the open plains, on looking upwards I have seen the con- 

 dors sailing through the air at a great height. Where the 

 country is level I do not believe a space of the heavens of 

 more than 15° above the horizon is commonly viewed 

 with any attention by a person either walking or on horse- 

 back. If such be the case, and the condor is on the wing at 

 a height of between 3,000ft. and 4,000ft., before it could come 

 within the range of vision its distance in a straight line from 

 the beholder's eye would be rather more than two miles. 

 Might it not thus readily be overlooked ? When an animal is 

 killed by the sportsman in a lonely valley, may he not all the 

 while be watched from above by the sharp-sighted bird ? 

 And will not the manner of its descent proclaim throughout 

 the district to the whole family of condors that their prey is 

 at hand .^ " (Darwin's "Naturalist's Voyage," pp. 183-186; 

 a book that should be in the hands of all our rising youth.) 



Still, while we here see the enormously superior powers of 

 unaided vision as shown by birds, man, too, not unfrequently 

 exceeds that of the common human powers of range, of 

 which I myself have known instances in New Zealand, and 

 therefore am inclined to relate them. In former years I have 

 satisfactorily proved this, in viewing with my telescope the 

 planet Jupiter, and also the cluster of stars called Pleiades in 

 the constellation Taurus, when I found that the Maoris could 

 see more stars in the Pleiades with the unaided eye than I could, 

 for, while I could only see clearly six stars, they could see seven, 

 and sometimes eight. This feat has also been done at home 

 in England, though very rarely, some few there having distin- 

 guished as many as twelve stars. This cluster has been men- 

 tioned in poetry as far back as Hesiod, B.C. 900 (contemporary 

 with Homer), who alludes to them as the Seven Virgins. In the 

 ancient MS. of Cicero's " Aratus,"^'- preserved in the British 

 Museum, the stars are named Merope, Alcyone, Celieno, Elec- 

 tra, Maia, Asterope, Taygeta. Though they have ever borne the 

 name of the " seven stars," yet to ordinary eyes six only are 

 visible. My reason for mentioning this ancient astronomical 

 MS. of the third or fourth century is that I happen to have a 

 copy of it with a, facsimile of the faces of those seven virgins 

 which I think will interest you.f To return : the Maoris 

 also could clearly distinguish and point out with the naked 

 eye the satellites or moous of Jupiter, with their respective 

 and changing positions. 



In botany (having read two or three papers containing 

 descriptions of some newly-discovered New Zealand plants 

 before the Institute during the last session, which I hope may 



* " Aratus," Greek Astronomer, 277 B.C. 

 t " Archseologia," vol. xxvi., art. iii., p. 47. 



