274 Canadian Ptecord of Science. 



selves on a level with the different branches of knowledge 

 they represent. I therefore decided that instead of en- 

 deavouring to review what had been done in the way of 

 scientific progress, even in Australasia, it would be better 

 to confine my remarks to New Zealand — the more so that 

 this is the first occasion that there has been a gathering of 

 what must, to some extent, be considered to be an outside 

 audience for the colony. 



To endeavour to describe, even briefly, the progress 

 made in the science of a new country is, however, 

 almost like writing its minute history. Every step 

 in its reclamation from a wild state of nature has de- 

 pended on the application of scientific knowledge, and the 

 reason for the rapid advance made in these colonies is 

 chiefly to be attributed to their having had the advantage 

 of all modern resources ready at hand. As inmost other 

 matters in New Zealand there is a sharp line dividing the 

 progress into two distinct periods, the first before and the 

 second after the formation of the colony in 1840. With 

 reference to the former period it is not requisite that much 

 should be said on this occasion. From the time of CajDtain 

 Cook's voyages, owing to his attractive narrative, New 

 Zealand acquired intense interest for naturalists. His de- 

 scriptions of the country and its productions, seeing that 

 he only gathered them from a few places where he landed 

 on the coast, are singularly accurate. But I think rather 

 too much is sometimes endeavored to be proved from the 

 negative evidence of his not having observed certain objects. 

 As an instance, it has been asserted that if any of the many 

 forms of the moa still survived, Captain Cook must have 

 been informed of the fact. Yet we find that he lay for 

 weeks in Queen Charlotte Sound and in Dusky Sound, 

 where all night long the cry of the kiwi must have been 

 heard just as now, and that he also obtained and took home 

 mats and other articles of native manufacture, trimmed 

 with kiwis' skins ; and that most likely the mouse-colored 

 quadruped which was seen at Dusky Sound by his men 

 when clearing the bush was only a gray kiwi ; and yet the 



