Matr.—On Rurima Rocks. 153 
These islets at one time abounded in hot springs; in places the shores 
consist entirely of silicious deposits, contorted in the most fantastic manner. 
Most of the rocks are, I think, trachytic. 
Rurima is famous for its fish ; hapuka (Oligorus gigas), kahawai (Arripis 
salar), snapper (Pagrus unicolor), tarakihi (Chilodactylus macropterus), moki 
(Latris ciliaris), king-fish (Seriola lalandii), wharehou (Neptomenus brama), 
barracoota (Zhyrsites atun), mackerel (Scomber australasicus), and the 
delicious little maomao, oan be caught in immense quantities. The koura, or 
sea cray-fish, is unusually large, and may be found anywhere under the sea- 
weed about low water-mark. Tokata, a rock looking something like a boat or 
canoe, and forming the in-shore limit of the group, is a great place for hapuka, 
while a rock, awash at half-tide, lying beyond all the rest to seaward, was in 
the olden time celebrated for the ngoiro, or conger-eel (Conger vulgaris); but 
the best fishing that I have ever met with was half-a-mile or thereabouts off 
the little sandy bay which I have described, by bringing the northern end of 
White Island just in sight to the left of Moutoki cone, and the inshore side of 
the western hummock of Rurima proper just clear of the inner face of the 
most southern hummock. In four or five fathoms water, with six lines, we 
had a whale-boat half fullin an hour. The first fish hauled in were followed 
to the surface by swarms of snapper, kahawai, kingtfish, barracoota and 
maomao, and then we simply bobbed for them as you would for minnows in a 
brook until my arms ached with the exertion of lifting them over the boat’s 
side. 
I have never seen a spot so well adapted for a fishing station. Were it 
utilised in this manner in all probability the trees would be felled, the birds 
would seek other nesting-placos, the tuataras would be exterminated, the 
mysterious dripping well would dry up, and some of Rurima’s most interesting 
features would disappear, but its fisheries would not be surpassed on the coasts 
of New Zealand. 
