ga 3 Transactions. — Botany. 
which brought down Mr. Marsden and his companions to form the permanent 
missionary establishment, also brought down horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, 
cats, dogs, and poultry of several species, in numbers sufficient to give the 
vessel the appearance of an ark, besides a great variety of seeds, especially 
wheat, barley, oats, Indian corn, and garden and grass seeds of various kinds, 
whilst considerable quantities of hay and other fodder, for the use of the 
animals during the voyage, also formed part of the general cargo. On 16th 
December, 1814, the vessel passed the Three Kings, and anchored on the coast 
some days afterwards, and between that time and the latter end of February, 
1815, the voyagers landed in various places on their way down, distributing 
seeds, etc., and explaining their uses to the natives, who accepted them eagerly 
and expressed a great willingness to cultivate them. Mr. Kirk will find very 
valuable information in reference to this voyage and its incidents in “Nicholas’ 
Evidence before the House of Lords Committee on 3rd April, 1837,” p. 4. ; 
Now it is well known that the pigs and poultry then introduced increased 
with enormous rapidity, the former indeed to such an extent that in 1819 
and 1820 they formed the principle articles of barter between the natives 
and the crews of the whale and other ships visiting the coast, in exchange 
for arms and ammunition, the natives even then hunting and catching them 
with dogs. 
From the mission stations as centres down the East Coast as far as Poverty 
Bay, the seeds of numbers of the European plants, and the progeny of many 
of the animals also, were rapidly distributed. Major Cruise, in his account of 
the visit of the “Dromedary” in 1820, particularly mentions that nearly — 
every war canoe carried a cock, a bird to which the natives took a great 
liking, in consequence of his crow and his bold bearing. I could multiply 
evidence to show the possibility of the introduction and rapid spread of the 
„plant in question in the northern habitat mentioned by Mr. Kirk, at least 
twenty-six years before the colonization of Auckland ; but I think the above 
facts, added to the silence of the earlier botanists, will satisfy him that some- 
thing more is required than he has advanced in his paper, in order to prove 
that they are natives of the soil. But he will say that these facts do not 
dispose of the case of Banks Peninsula. Well, in regard to that locality, Mr. 
Kirk is probably not aware that besides the constant visits, before alluded to, 
of numbers of whale and other ships from Hobart Town and Sydney to the 
harbours of Akaroa and Port Cooper, large tracts of the pastoral country in 
the vicinity of both harbours were occupied by European settlers, with cattle 
and horses, so long ago as 1832. These animals were chiefly brought from 
Tasmania by the Greenwoods, and the hay and fodder necessary for their use 
during the voyages were almost certain to contain seeds of the plants in 
question, even if they did not occur amongst those which had been introduced 
