4 
808 Transactions.—Z oology. 
maggot stage he precipitately proceeded to gct rid of the eggs, he would 
soon discover that he had only succeeded in making matters ten times 
worse, for in his vain endeavours to rub or scrape off the eggs he was sure 
to burst most of them, the outer skin of which thereby became indelibly 
glued into the material, presenting for ever after the disgusting appearance 
of a dirty white blotch or stain on the garment. Experience soon taught 
the early settlers that the only effectual mode of remedying the evil was to 
wrap up the garment till the eggs were hatched out into the larval stage, 
when a smart shake of the outspread garment at once freed it from all trace of 
the nuisance. The evil was always worst in warm damp weather, but it was 
not confined to such days, nor to woollen materials lying at rest in the open 
air. For a long time it was absolutely necessary and commonly practised 
to wrap up all woollen materials in close calico bags—even the very blankets 
on beds had to be rolled up and wrapped in calico soon after the night’s 
repose, and it was rare in those days to see blankets that had not been 
disfigured by the disagreeable stains alluded to, for once the eggs were burst 
there was no washing out of the mark afterwards. 
Iam indebted to W. D. Murison, Esq., editor of the ‘ Daily Times," 
for the following note on this subject, and subsequent ones on other fauna, 
which I shall read in their several places :—‘ It was common to take the 
blankets from the bed in the morning, if the weather was fine, and hang 
them over a rope. They would not then be ‘blown,’ as there were no 
folds.” 
I remember on one occasion going on a fishing excursion to the Silver 
Stream, for in those days everybody was possessed with the fond belief that 
New Zealand would beat the world for fishing or shooting, or, for the 
matter of that, for any other natural production to be found in any country 
on the face of the globe—one of our infantile illusions long since got rid of. 
It was a warm damp night, on which, according to all orthodox rules of the 
piscatorial art, we ought to have had plenty of sport. But a drizzling rain 
and empty baskets sent us home in the early morning only for me to 
discover that my fine waterproof mohair overcoat, recently brought from 
home and looked upon as an invaluable companion in a land of few 
accommodation-houses and no umbrellas, was one mass of maggots every- 
where. My inexperience made me disgustedly pitch it on the dung-heap, 
from whence it never reappeared, at any rate as a coat. Another instance: 
My father bought a property and run in the Tokomairiro district in 1852. 
There was no possibility then of taking any wheeled vehicle from Dunedin, 
and hence all goods and provisions were shipped in small coasting craft 
and sent round by sea to the Taieri mouth and landed at the head of the 
. Waihola Lake. For in those primitive days it was officially impressed upon 
