112 ilOYAL SOCIETY FROM THE YEAR 1840 TO 1900, 



active work for the society. His name appears in the 

 first list of members, with residence : — Port Phillip. His 

 first paper was written from Saltwater River, Tasman 

 Peninsula, where as medical Dflficer to the government 

 he had leisure to observe the poisonous apparatus of 

 the venomous reptiles of that country retreat. Some very 

 useful remarks on the nomenclature and. classification of 

 rocks in new countries, by the English geologist, Mr. J. B. 

 Jukes, set forth clearly the grouping on which geologists 

 should found their method of classification. 



The Eev. T. J. Ewing, whose list of birds is contained in 

 the first volume, is represented in the second by a paper on 

 the statistics of Tasmania, from which it may be of interest 

 to make a few extracts. The three years under review are 

 from 1838 to 1841. The revenue from the customs increased 

 during the three years from .£70,000 to ^885,000, an increase 

 of 21 per cent. The post office revenue rose from ^4,300 to 

 i£6,500, or 25 per cent. The total revenue, including sales of 

 Crown lands, rose from ^144,562 to =£237,381. The average 

 value for the three years of the imports was d£665,535, for a 

 population which, including convicts, only numbered 50,000 

 souls. The sheep in 1841 amonnted to 1,167,737 ; the horses 

 numbered 12,000; horned cattle, 90,C00. There were 1287 

 marriages during the period. 



Thaliev W. Colenso, an enthusiastic naturalist, contributed 

 valuable notes of a, trip in New Zealand, during which Le 

 collected more than 1000 specimens of natural history. 



The picturesque museum at Ancanthe, built by Lady 

 Franklin, contained not only specimens of natural history, 

 but a good library containing books classified as follows: — 

 (a) Works illustrative of Tasmania and the neighbouring- 

 colonies; (6) Works written by persons who had been, or 

 were then, residents of Tasmania; (c) Works written and 

 published in Tasmania, provided they were of such a character 

 as would not be objected to by the Trustees. The collection 

 contained besides many other interesting books, some of the 

 volumes of the splendid work Grould's Birds of Australia, 

 Mr. Westgarth in a paper on Port Phillip, then little known, 

 describes its geological formation, but gives no hint of the 

 alluvial richness that, in a few years, so transformed that 

 country. 



In the summer of 1838 the Rev. W. Colenso, whose papers 

 on New Zealand form a most interesting part of this second 

 volume, was fascinated by the description given by the 

 Maories of the gigantic bird they called the Moa. They 

 insisted that it lived in a cavern on the side of a mountain, 

 that it subsisted on air, that it was guarded by two immense 

 reptiles, and that if anyone ventured near it he would be 



