452 Proceedings. 



engineers, so the Central Institution is intended to afford practical, scientific, and artistic 

 instruction, which will qualify persons to hecome —(1) technical teachers ; (2) mechanical, 

 civil, and electrical engineers, architects, builders, and decorative artists ; (3) principals, 

 superintendents, and managers of chemical and other manufacturing works. The details 

 of the scheme are of course conceived on a scale, and with a view to an expenditure of 

 funds, which exceed all practical limits for a city like Auckland ; but as I believe that the 

 key lo the future prosperity of this city is to be found in the development of her manufac- 

 tures, any attempt, however humble, to afford facilities for the acquisition of technical 

 knowledge would be acceptable as tending to further local prosperity. In this direction 

 the combined efforts of the Institute and University College, together with such private 

 munificence as might from time to time be available, would I believe be productive of no 

 small results." The President concluded his address as follows : — " It is not given to all 

 of us to divert the current of human thought, or to remodel the universe. Most of us 

 have to be content anl thankful if we can, as passing travellers, add but a small pebble to 

 the growing cairn. The great mass of human knowledge is, for the most part, made up 

 of the minute contributions of individuals, and, while we bow in reverence before the 

 achievements of master-minds, we cannot afford to despise the humbler labours of the 

 majority. The truth of a great scientific theory can only be tested by the minute investi- 

 gation of details, and the discovery of some fact, in itself apparently insignificant, may be 

 fraught with issues of incalculable importance. The only attitude that we can rightly 

 assume is that of humble seekers after truth, humble and yet fearless of results, knowing 

 that nothing will be permanent that is not really true, and that nothing that is true can 

 be unimportant. What the final result may be we can leave to take care of itself. We 

 are ' toiling upward in the night,' and who shall prescribe the limits to which we may 

 ultimately attain — for, to quote the words of Charles Kingsley : ' Science is accused of 

 trying to scale Olympus, by those who fancy that they have already scaled it themselves, 



and will, of course, brook no rival in their fancied monopoly of wisdom 



And yet Science may scale Olympus after all. Without intending it, almost without 

 knowing it, she may find herself hereafter upon a summit of which she never dreamed, 

 surveying the Universe of God in the light of Him who made it and her, and remakes 

 them both for ever and ever. On that summit she may stand hereafter, if only she goes 

 on, as she goes now, in humility and patience ; doing the duty which lies nearest her ; 

 lured along the upward road, not by ambition, vanity, or greed, but by reverent curiosity 

 for every new pebble, and flower, and child, and savage, around her feet.' " 



2. " Notes on a Bird called Malau," by the Eev. S. W. Baker. 



ABSTEACT. 



The bird Malau was stated to be found only on the little island Ninafou, to the north- 

 ward of Tonga. It is confined to the immediate vicinity of a deep crater-like lake. In the 

 light soil surrounding the lake it excavates tunnels sometimes six feet in length, and in 

 them deposits its eggs, which are sometimes as many as twenty in number. The bird does 

 not sit upon the eggs, but leaves them to be hatched by the heat of the sun. The young birds 

 are fully fledged when they emerge from the egg, and take care of themselves without any 

 assistance from the parent bird. 



Mr. Cheeseman stated that Mr. Baker's bird was a species of mound-builder called 

 Megcqiodius pritchardi. A specimen was in the Museum, which was presented some years 

 ago by Captain Eou^h ; and a coloured drawing would be found in the " Proceedings of 

 the Zoological Society " for 1864. (See also Dr. Buller's account of this specimen under 

 the name of Malan. Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iii., p. 14.) 



3, " A Decade of new Feroniida," by Captain T. Broun, M.E.S. 



