108 LINDSAY, ON THE PROTOPHYTA OF NEW ZEALAND. 
It is certainly not out of place here also to introduce some 
of Dr. Greville’s instructions to myself when about to visit 
New Zealand; they cannot fail to be as serviceable to, and 
suitable for others, whether travellers or residents, as they 
were tome. “ The collecting is a very simple affair,” says 
he, ‘the whole apparatus being a small iron spoon, and a few 
small, wide-mouthed bottles, half a dozen of which are carried 
in the pocket.*.... Youare quite correct with regard to the 
general habitats of diatoms. In skimming the mud from the 
banks of streams, select quiet places ; and if there are traces 
of recent floods it would be of no use, as the diatoms would 
be washed away. Moist, gelatinous, slimy surfaces of rocks 
(often on vertical precipices and in caves) are very rich in 
Diatoms, especially when these occur on sea-shore cliffs. 
Short moss, growing in similar situations, on which water is 
constantly trickling, is a good trap for diatoms, and a good 
handful of it might be taken and merely wrapped in paper. 
.... Springs of water, which form little basins lined with 
mud or sand, almost always contain them. In bogs and 
morasses, clear spots of water, even a few inches across, are 
often rich (the mud).... Where the margins of ponds or 
slow streams are lined with conferve or that mixture of slimy 
vegetation, half cryptogamous, half phenogamous, which so 
often occurs in such situations, take a handful of it and pre- 
serve it en masse.t .... I am afraid that freshwater Alge 
may not be in good state; but as to Diatoms in any sort of 
mess, I am not afraid of them.” 
I am aware of no contributions whatever towards a know- 
ledge of the Marine Diatoms of New Zealand—of its seas and 
coasts; while I believe this category to be the more interest- 
ing, inasmuch as a relationship will probably be proved to 
exist between living species and those which occur in a fossil 
state in the various tertiary or post-tertiary, or other calca- 
reous or arenaceous formations of New Zealand—formations 
that are largely developed in certain localities, and which 
abound in Foraminifera and other minute or microscopic 
animal organisms [Protozoa]. ‘The identity or similarity be- 
tween existing species and those imbedded in geological de- 
posits, especially of the later ages, has been proved in regard 
to the Diatomacee of various other parts of the world.§ Dr. 
* Letter of date, June 6th, 1861. 
+ Letter of date, June 11th, 1861. 
+ Letter of date, September 15th, 1862. 
§ The distribution of fossil forms would appear to be as “extensive in 
geological, as that of existing species is at the present, time. They range 
from the Silurian to the Tertiary and Recent epoch; the oldest forms (geo- 
