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name, like the motto on the fishing house he immortalised, 

 " Piscatoribus Sacrum." These are books -whieh 1 should 

 like to see often in the hands of boys in the colonies. I 

 am sure that they exercised a beneficial influence on ray 

 boyhood at home and my early life in the colonies. How 

 often I remember, wandering as a boy, fly-rod in hand, 

 along some Dorsetshire or Devonshire stream, and whilst 

 tempting the trout from rippling fall or shady pool ; with 

 what pleasure one watched the quaint waterhen, and 

 caught the rapid flash of the glancing kingfisher. How 

 one followed, gun in hand, the jay and magpie from 

 orchard to covert ; and waited by hedge-row or fern brake 

 for the rabbits at sundown. How interested the boy's 

 mind became in every natural object around, till the heavy 

 winged white owl came out and the night closed in. And, 

 later in life, exploring up among the snow sprinkled ranges 

 of the Kaikoras in New Zealand, how often have I lain 

 awake to watch the bold, not to say insolent familiarities 

 of the Weka or Wood-hen, pecking round the embers of 

 the fire, and not unfrequently abstracting precious articles 

 placed by what served as your pillow for greater security, 

 such as soap, or comb, or pipe, dear to the bushraan, " ea 

 sola voluptas," I will not add " solamenque mali." In- 

 corrigible birds ! I have known them (undismayed by 

 stick or stone) to return at once and follow up such petty 

 larcenies by a combined and determined attempt to drag 

 a waterproof from the prostrate form of a sleeping fellow 

 traveller, ^fl^e have most of us some such memories to 

 amuse us, and the habit clings through life. I still delight 

 in the parrots and flycatchers and magpies about the 

 Government House grounds; and take pleasure in seeing 

 the fat, lazy tench basking under the willows, and the stout, 

 pursy perch come bristling up amongst them full of a fussy 

 self-importance that is quite a caricature on poor humanity ; 

 perhaps we might draw morals even from fish had we an 

 iEsop amongst us, but at all events I believe that we should 

 generally be happier — possibly even better — did we learn 

 to enjoy and take lessons from the simple contem- 

 plation of nature as we see it in our every day life, or in 

 those country excursions from which, happily, few in these 

 colonies are debarrred. Your society, and the efforts of those 

 interested in acclimatisation,havedonemuch to promote this, 

 and you have laid the foundation for more by the Library, 

 the Botanical Gardens, and the Museum. I cannot but refer 



