BuLLER. — On the Ornitliology of Neiu Zealand. 183 



suppose that the bogs over which the Irish elk roamed and 

 fed supported a more hixuriant vegetation than they nov7 do." 



" How profoundly interesting is the islet fauna of New 

 Zealand ! Much of this is new to me. I wonder when their 

 plants will receive the same treatment as you give to their 

 birds, &c. I hope that you will gather your facts into a 

 general work on the natural history of New Zealand. Your 

 difficulty will then be to keep it down to a moderate size, 

 especially as I hope you will illustrate plentifully. A good 

 map will be necessary, as it is impossible to find in the 

 ordinary ones many of the places you mention. I am always 

 glad to see Colenso's name brought forward. I wish he could 

 have been persuaded to treat of plants as you have of animals. 

 As it is, I can only marvel at the results of his eye-work as a 

 collector and his indefatigable industry, zeal, and self-denial ; 

 and I look back on my weeks of personal intercourse and 

 years of active correspondence with him as a long episode of 

 New Zealand in my life." 



As anything written by Sir Joseph Hooker is of special 

 interest to New Zealand readers, I will give just one more 

 extract from his letter : " You may be interested to know 

 that I am printing Banks's ' Narrative of Cook's First Voyage,' 

 which is full of matter not contained in 'Hawksworth,' and 

 will, I hope, give an unexpected view of Banks's marvellous 

 industry and powers of observation as a naturalist and eth- 

 nologist. The journal is of portentous length, and to bring the 

 best parts into a volume of four hundred pages I shall have to 

 omit a multitude of details of daily life at sea — of no interest — 

 and much of the nautical details already published by Hawks- 

 worth ; also many long passages relating to the customs of 

 the natives that will not bear reproduction — most of which 

 are, indeed, in 'Hawksworth' already. Though I, through my 

 father, who was intimate with him, have, I suppose, heard 

 more of Banks than any other living man, I never before 

 realised, what my father used to affirm, his great knowledge 

 as a naturalist, and his powers." 



From Mr. Roland Trimen, F.R.S.,the Director of the Cape 

 Museum, I have a very similar criticism: " In your very in- 

 teresting 'Illustrations of Darwinism,' &c. (p. 102), I notice 

 that you refer to the case of frozen mammoths in Siberia as 

 indicating a very sudden change from tropical to arctic con- 

 ditions there ; but it has always seemed to me that the change 

 must have been very gradual indeed until the final unex- 

 plained catastrophe, because not only were the mammoths 

 clothed with shaggy hair, but the last food they took (as 

 shown by the undigested and actually unaltered quantity in 

 their stomachs) consisted of shoots of the very same species of 

 Pinus, &c., which now flourish on the tundra wastes." 



