30 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



in the water we could see thousands of tiny trout. Close to our 

 camp there was more greenery than elsewhere. Shrubs of Orites 

 and Lomatia, Coprosma, and a few Blackwood trees, shaded us 

 from too much sun, while our carpet consisted partly of a beau- 

 tiful patch of the fern Polypodium punctatum, and partly of grass, 

 studded with myriad blooms of the violets V. hederacea and 

 V. betonicifolia. 



After lunch we divided our forces. Mr. Lucas went fishing, 

 Alfred stayed to fix up the camp, Mr. Howitt and Dr. Dendy 

 went to look for the outlet of the lake. Mr. Lucas had 

 brought up the smallest hooks and flies procurable in town, and 

 made for a small rocky promontory by which the water was deep. 

 The first throw of the fly caused a commotion — all the fish about 

 wanted to bite. One rather bigger than the rest got on, and it 

 seemed as if it would be easy to secure as many specimens as we 

 wanted. But it soon became plain that the hooks were too large. 

 Alfred caught two more, using worms and grubs as bait, but when 

 the explorers came back they found the fishermen patient but 

 scarcely hopeful. Dr. Dendy accordingly wished to try his hand, 

 end succeeded in getting two more before tea-time by means of one 

 of the fly-hooks stripped of the feathers and baited with a minute 

 bit of cork stuck on the extreme point of the hook. Afterwards 

 small pellets of dough were used, but it was obvious that the 

 nature of the bait was of no consequence. Whatever it was, the 

 fish went for it eagerly ; as soon as it touched the water round 

 came a shoal, but it was very difiicult to hook them. Mr. Lucas 

 made an ingenious net out of his blue fly-net, but in spite of 

 all our efforts we only caught half-a-dozen altogether. The species 

 proves to be a new one, and will be described by Mr. Lucas as 

 Galaxias nigothoruk. The average length is about 2^4 inches, and 

 the colour a dark olive green with multitudes of deep brown spots- 

 Mr. Howitt and Dr. Dendy made their way along the shore of 

 the lake, and so came to the great barrier which dams the 

 head of the valley. From the general lie of the country it 

 was obvious that the lake must be connected with the Wel- 

 lington River — indeed, that one branch of the latter takes its 

 origin in the lake — and our explorers were now going to examine 

 the valley below the barrier. They forced a passage through 

 the thick scrub, which covers it and shows that the lake 

 never bodily overflows. They crossed the barrier on the right, 

 and found themselves at the head of a greal gorge which they 

 named the Valley of Destruction. The bed of this gorge is a 

 jumbled mass of huge angular rocks, many as large as houses, 

 piled on top of one another in inextricable confusion, while in the 

 crevices between the rocks, and wherever a scrap of soil is avail- 

 able, a dense scrub grows, consisting in part of good -sized gum 

 trees, while dead limbs and trunks have in many places fallen 

 across the rocks and added their share to the general confusion. 



