48 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
after a fashion by the autochthones of New Zealand? Or might I even 
suggest that one or more of the wrecked mariners of Indian origin were 
saved, and that they accompanied as slaves the ancient inhabitants of this 
island on their journeys, during which these paintings were executed by 
them ? 
These ancient works of primitive art, as of considerable historic value, 
are therefore invested with still greater interest, and I have no doubt that 
further research will make us acquainted with more of these remarkable 
relics of the past. I may here observe that as far back as 1862 I met 
with paintings of similar character and in a splendid state of preservation, 
during my geological surveys in the south, but which I then passed over, 
~ imagining that they were probably the work of some shepherd who had 
devoted his leisure hours to the execution of these strange figures and 
characters with the red paint with whieh sheep are usually branded. I 
was then, to speak in colonial language, comparatively a new chum, but I 
may console myself with the fact that many of our intelligent settlers have 
looked at them quite in the same light. However, I shall not fail to collect 
all the material as soon as I can find the time, and hope that the settlers in 
limestone country will kindly inform me where such paintings are still 
existing. As before observed, the paintings under review occur over a face 
of about sixty-five feet, and the upper end of some reaches eight feet above 
the floor ; the average height, however, being four to five feet. They are 
all of considerable size, most of them measuring several feet, and even one 
of them having a length of fifteen feet. 
Beginning at the eastern end, we find in the left-hand corner the 
representation (No. 1) of what might be taken for a sperm whale, with 
its mouth wide open, diving downwards. This figure is three feet long. 
Five feet from it is another figure (No. 8), which might also represent 
a whale or some fabulous two-headed marine monster. This painting is 
three feet four inches long. Below it, a little to the left, in No. 4, we 
have the representation of a large snake possessing a swollen head and 
a long protruding tongue. This figure is nearly three feet long, and 
shows numerous windings. It is difficult to conceive how the natives, in a 
country without snakes, could not only have traditions about them, but 
actually be able to picture them, without they had received amongst them 
immigrants from tropical countries who had landed on the coasts of New 
Zealand from somé cause or another. You are well aware that already on 
the second visit of Captain Cook, Tawaihura, a native chief of Queen Char- 
lotte Sound, gave an account of enormous snakes and lizards to him, and 
drew a representation of both animals so distinctly that they could not be 
mistaken, but hitherto the researches of naturalists for so many years have 
