RAMBLES ROUND DUNEDIN. 205 



from the ground by burning, and thus the very element by 

 which they might enrich the soil is largely dissipated into 

 the atmosphere. What a wealth of honey seems to be 

 wasted in the flowers of these plants ! You may ' ' w T atch 

 the laden bees amid the honey flowers " of the garden, but 

 you will not find them much among these plants. The 

 hive-bees do visit the broom flowers, which explode on 

 their pushing into them, and throw a cloud of pollen over 

 the intruders ; thus they are fertilised. But the gorse, 

 with its magnificent trusses of golden bloom, making the 

 vernal air heavy with their fragrance, is seldom visited. 

 As a matter of fact there is no nectar in either of these 

 flowers, and they are only visited by insects for their pollen. 



As we get near the top of the hill we pass on our right 

 hand several deep hollows, open towards the south-east, 

 which are the coldest parts of the whole countryside ; and 

 here, just where it can easily be seen from many parts of 

 the town and its suburbs, the snow lies longest in Winter. 

 During this year (1901), the severest perhaps on record, the 

 snow lay continuously for over five months. A heavy fall 

 as early as April 27th soon disappeared off the whole of the 

 surrounding country except in these hollows, where it lay 

 till July 4th and 5th, when another deep fall again buried 

 all the uplands in a white sheet. Renewed from time to 

 time, it gradually melted off the hills, until in the first 

 week of October only five drifts were visible, and these 

 daily decreased in size till the storm of October 5th-6th 

 once more whitened the surface and gave them a fresh 

 coating. There were one or two patches still to be found 

 on October 13th, but the warm wind of the following 

 day dissipated the last of them. 



All the ground on this side of Flagstaff Hill drains into 

 Ross's Creek, the second of the tributary streams of the 

 Leith. The whole of this watershed is about 1000 acres 

 in extent ; and when the necessity of obtaining a per- 

 manent water supply for Dunedin became apparent this 

 stream was selected, and its waters were arrested by a 

 solid dam. At that time nearly the whole area was 

 covered with dense bush. Since I first came to Dunedin I 



