94 SAIL FROM NEW ZEALAND. 



of all the woods of the country. A short senrch 

 among' the damp stones and moss brought to lig-ht 

 some small but interesting* land shells, consisting 

 of a pupiform Cyclostoma, a Carocolla, and five 

 species of Helix. This leads me to mention^ that 

 althoug-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 Sydney, who spent 

 nine months on the northern and middle islands, 

 obtained nearly a hundred species of terrestrial and 

 fluviatile moUusca. The scarcity of birds during* 

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

 on shore was a solitary king-fisher {Halcyon vagans): 

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

 ducks [Anas sujmrcillosa) flew past the boat, and 

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

 merous. 



Returning- to the road b}^ a path which 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 g-entleman'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 ^ery 

 excellent rock-oysters. 



Having eifected the necessary repairs, and dis- 

 posed of the decked boat, we left New Zealand on 

 May 23nd on our homeward passage. On July 



