Proceedings. 301 



There were upon llie table several spirit preparations of fishes from 

 the estuary of the Derweut. A sample of the red oil obtained from the 

 sooty petrel, Puffinus brevieaudus. Several teeth of the sperm whale. 

 Two teeth of the Walrus, from Behring's Straits. Eight varieties 

 of wood from Norfolk Island. Sev&ral rock specimens from the same, 

 place. A collection of casts of fossil shells {Spiriferce) from Eagle 

 Hawk Neck. Specimens of clays and clay rock, with iron pyrites, 

 crystallized in cubes, from Circular Head, and a number of skins of 

 Tasmaniau birds, from Mr. Bonney. 



The President read a correspondence with the Sight Honourable 

 the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and others, on the introduc- 

 tion of salmon into Van Diemen's Land ; also a despatch from Earl 

 Grey, with its enclosure — au analysis of the Coal of Tasmania at the 

 Museum of Economic Geology, Loudon, with a report thereon ; and 

 another communication on the same subject from Sir H. T. De La 

 Beche, F.R.S., F.G.S., &c., by which it appears that the Geological 

 Society of Loudon will exchange duplicate specimens with the Royal 

 Society of Van Diemen's Land. 



Lieut. Clarke, R.E., read a short paper by Sir W. Denison on the 

 formation of dams, with a view to irrigation as peculiarly applicable, 

 and likely to be very valuable to this colony. 



The Secretary read the following extracts from a letter of the Rev. 

 W. Colenso to Ronald C.Gunn, Esq.,of Launceston, dated Waitangi 

 Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, 4th September, 1850 : — 



"I have procured two specimens of the ancient, and all but quite extinct, 

 • NewZealand Rat.vi'hjch until just now (and notwiihstandingall my endeavours, 

 backed, too, by lav<^e rewards) I never saw. It is, without doubt, a true Mus, 

 smaller than our English black rat, (Mis Rattus),anA not unlike it. This 

 little anir.ial once inhabited the plains and Fagus forests of New Zealand in 

 countless thousands, and was both the common food and great delicacy oi' the 

 natives — and already it is all but quite classed among the things which were, 

 I have also a bat, which I believe to belong to the genus Vesperlilio ', at all 

 events widely Cgenerically) distinct from the species mentioned by Gray, iu 

 Dieffbnbach's New Zealand, vol. ii., p. 296. This little creature I kept alive 

 a whole month, and was not a little amused with its habits. 



" Among other novelties,^! have discovered another and very distinct species 

 of vegetating caterpillar, of which, however, 1 have only hitherto detected 

 two specimens. It differs widely in general appearance from Sphceria Robei tsii- 

 Some fine specimens of Aseroe, and of that other nearl^'-aliied genus lllodictyon, 

 of which I have a new and very large species, which I call /. lailcostce, and 

 which, when fully evolved, forms a living net of nearly 18 inches in girth. 



