608 New Zealand Institute. 
ment, who obtained them from the Brother Islands during the survey for 
the new lighthouse. 
Fishes.—From the British Museum we have also the most important 
addition under this head—viz., 100 species, part of which are stuffed, and 
the rest in spirit. 
Invertebrata.—A. fine collection of New Zealand insects, Coleoptera, pre- 
sented by Mr. C. M. Wakefield, and those received from the British 
Museum. 
The collection of land shells (854 species) from the British Museum is 
also an important addition to the Museum. 
Paleontology.— During the present year a further examination has been 
undertaken of the Reefton district. This work went to confirm what was 
previously almost settled—viz., that the fossiliferous slates and madrepore 
limestones of Devonian age which occur in this district are overlaid uncon- 
formably by the auriferous slates (Maitai series ?) 
No new fossils were discovered in these beds, but portions of two large 
Trilobites were secured. 
The auriferous slates are still, as ever, devoid of fossils ; they have been 
traced from Reefton south as far as the Grey, and are also seen as isolated 
patches at Ross and still further south, no fossils, however, showing in 
them. 
From the slates occurring to the eastward of the belt of crystalline 
rocks, which strike through the island from north to south, an indistinct 
fossil Annelid is obtained, the character of which has not as yet been deter- 
mined ; it is, however, identical with one which occurs in similar rocks near 
Nelson, and similar to a fossil in the slates of Mount Torlesse and in the 
Ashley Gorge. 
It is probable that these slates are identical with the auriferous slates of 
Reefton before mentioned ; and it is in them that the gold-bearing reefs of 
the Taipo Ranges occur. 
At Callaghan Hill, Westland, and at the Waimea Township, collections 
were made from the calcareous and greensand beds of the Kanieri series ; 
and these collections, together with one made at Redman Creek, near 
Ross, may be taken as typical of the beds throughout the vast extent of 
country over which they occur. 
At the Abbey Rocks a development of the coal measures occurs, in the 
shales of which fossil ferns, etc., have been found; and from certain beds of 
greensand, overlying the coal measures, a somewhat indistinct collection of 
