4514 THE ZooLoGist—JULY, 1875. 
subscription list for the purpose, followed by a number of gentlemen 
who took an interest in the matter, and which, assisted by a grant 
from the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, soon placed the 
greater portion of the necessary funds in my hands. After having 
obtained the permission from Mr. Alfred Claypon Watson, Sumner 
Road, on whose property the Sumner Cave is situated, I began the 
work of excavation on Monday, September 23rd, and ended on 
Saturday, November 9th, 1872, the same having thus been accom- 
plished in seven weeks, during which time I occupied always two 
labourers working under my directions. I may be allowed to 
present here my warmest thanks on behalf of the Canterbury 
Museum to the subscribers of the funds, and to Mr. Watson, the 
owner of the soil, for his permission to undertake the work. I wish 
also to apologise to them that I have not been able before to-day 
to lay the results of these excavations and researches before them. 
However, I must plead, in extenuation, that the bulk of this paper 
was written more than a year ago, but that I was then compelled, 
from want of room in the Museum, to repack the extensive col- 
lections made during these excavations, before I found the time to 
examine them thoroughly and describe them in detail; and only in 
the last few months I have managed to make the necessary space 
in one of the work-rooms for doing so. * 
Before entering into a description of the results achieved, I think 
it will be expedient to offer a few general observations on the 
geological features of the cave and of the surrounding country, as 
in the summing up it will be necessary for me to refer to them in 
elucidation of some of the points at issue. 
Geological Features.— Banks Peninsula, an extinct volcanic 
system of large dimensions, standing as an island, in post-pliocene 
times, in the sea, shows by the configuration of its base that an oscil- 
lation averaging about twenty feet in vertical height has taken place, 
the country being depressed and afterwards raised to about the same 
altitude again. ‘This line is well visible travelling round Banks 
Peninsula to its western termination, where, when we reach that alti- 
tude above the sea-level, the signs of a former submersion disappear 
below the newer fluviatile and lacustrine deposits. During and 
after the small submergence of its base, this portion of Banks 
Peninsula was, of course, subjected to the fury of the waves, when 
in favourable localities caves were formed either by the removal of 
loose materials (tufas) between two harder lava-streams, or by the 
