94 SAIL FROM NEW ZEALAND. 



of all the woods of the country. A short search 

 among* the damp stones and moss broug'ht to lig'ht 

 some small but interesting* land shells^ consisting* 

 of a pupiform Cyclostomay a Carocolla, and five 

 species of Helix. This leads me to mention^ that 

 althouo-h the number of New Zealand land shells 

 hitherto described scarcely exceeds a dozen^ this does 

 not imply any scarcity of such objects in the country, 

 as an industrious collector from Sydne}^, who spent 

 nine months on the northern and middle islands, 

 obtained nearly a hundred species of terrestrial and 

 fluviatile mollusca. The scarcity of birds during* 

 our walk surprised me, for the only one which I saw 

 on shore was a solitary kingfisheY {Halcyon tngans) : 

 during* our ascent of the Keri-Keri, however, many 

 ducks (Afias superciliosa) flew past the boat, and 

 g'ulls, terns, and two kinds of cormorants were nu- 

 merous. 



Beturning* to the road by a path Avhich avoided 

 the swamps our g-uide had taken us throug*h, in 

 little more than half an hour we reached Mr. Kemp's 

 house, and after partaking of that gentleman's hos- 

 pitality returned to the ship. On our way we landed 

 at sunset for an hour upon a small island, which 

 will probably long* be remembered by some of the 

 party as having* furnished us with a supper of very 

 excellent rock-oysters. 



Having effected the necessary repairs, and dis- 

 posed of the decked boat, we left New Zealand on 

 May 22nd on our homeward passag*e. On July 



