Pe ee eee ee a ee at 
Wellington Philosophical Society. 407 
Another important paper read before the Society during the past year, 
is that by Dr. Hector on ‘‘ Whales ;’’ and the excellent plates which accom- 
pany it, from photographs by Mr. Travers, add much to the interest of the 
article. It contains a full description of Neobalena marginata, founded on 
a specimen which was captured among a large school of blackfish at | 
Stewart Island, and forwarded to the Colonial Museum by Mr. Charles 
Traill; also of the ‘‘ sulphur-bottom”’ (Physalus australis), the skeleton of 
which is now in the Wellington Botanic Gardens; and of that interesting 
form of ziphoid whale known as Berardius hectori from a specimen cast 
ashore in Lyall Bay in January last. : 
It is to be hoped that Dr. Hector will be able to carry out his intention 
of publishing while in England a monograph of the cetacea inhabiting the 
southern seas, for which, as he informs me, he has collected and taken 
home ample material. There is probably no other section of zoology in 
which a contribution of this sort would be more acceptable to the savans of 
Europe, owing to the present neglected state of its literature, and the con- 
fusion of nomenclature in which many of the species are involved. 
There is another article from the same pen, on ‘‘New Zealand Ichthy- 
ology,” which contains descriptions of no less than sixteen new species of 
fishes, all taken recently on our coast, thus proving that this field of investi- 
gation is far from being exhausted. 
In the section Botany, the first article is a paper read by Mr. Buchanan 
in November last, on ‘“‘ The Flowering Plants and Ferns of the Chatham 
Islands,” the materials being drawn from the collection in the herbarium of 
the Colonial Museum, nearly the whole of which was made by Mr. Henry 
Travers during his two expeditions to those Islands in 1866 and 1871. The 
article throughout bears testimony to Mr. Buchanan’s usual care and 
accuracy, and the illustrations, five in number, are very beautifully executed. 
That of the so-called Chatham Island lily (Myosotidium nobile), a handsome 
plant, with large glossy leaves and clusters of blue flowers, which I was 
fortunate enough to discover during a visit to the Chathams just twenty 
years ago, is especially noticeable. 
Our late President, Dr. Knight, resuming a subject in which he has 
already made several important contributions to science, presents us with a 
valuable paper on ‘“‘ New Zealand Lichens,” and with another containing 
descriptions of some new species of Gymnostomum, all the carefully-drawn 
illustrations being from the author’s own pencil. 
The papers on chemistry have emanated, as usual, from Mr. Skey, the 
analyst to the Geological Survey, the value of whose work in this depart- 
ment of science has already been brought prominently before you by a 
former occupant of this chair. 
