530 Proceedings. 



It will thus be seen that the statement in the beginning of the account 

 given by the New Zecdand Times is altogether devoid of truth, and only 

 made to hide somewhat the dishonest action of filching another man's 

 property. 



I afterwards employed A. McKay to wash the specimens and varnish the 

 bones, during which time both Mr. F. Fuller and myself gave him, 

 unreservedly, all information upon them, and when shortly afterwards 

 Dr. Hector came to Christchurch, I recommended the said person to him 

 warmly as a zealous collector, upon which recommendation he was engaged to 

 go to Wellington. 



I therefore strongly protest against this most glaring breach of trust, of 

 which no similar instance is known to me. 



It deej^ly grieves me, that a man, for whom I have done everything in my 

 power to help him on in the world, should thus, by betraying so shamefully 

 the confidence placed in him, gain an unenviable notoriety, but I am still more 

 astonished to see a person in Dr. Hector's position, actually help my former 

 workman in this business. This is incomprehensible to me. The Director of 

 the Colonial Museum cannot plead in excuse that he had been deceived himself 

 by McKay, as I went to the trouble to take him myself to the cave a few 

 weeks after the excavations had been finished, and to explain to him what had 

 been the principal results of my excavations, towards the expenses of which 

 I paid a fair share out of my own pocket. In one word. Dr. Hector must 

 know that the abettor of such a perfidious transaction, is as guilty as the 

 perpetrator himself. 



Ninth Meeting. \st October ^ 1874. 

 Julius Haast, Ph.D., F.R.S., President, in the chair. 

 'New member. — P. Parker. 



1. " On a new Thermometer for Lecture Purposes," by Professor A. W. 

 Bickerton, F.C.S. {Transactions, p. 152.) 



2. " On a Modification of the Electric Lamp for projecting the Sj^ectra of 

 different Metals on the Screen," by Professor A. W. Bickerton. {Trans- 

 actions, p. 403.) 



3. ** Notes on an alleged new Species of Tern {Sterna alba, Potts)," by 

 Walter L. Buller, D.Sc, F.L.S., C.M.Z.S. {Transactions, p. 214.) 



4. " Explanation of some personal Remarks made in Mr. Potts's paper on 

 the Birds of New Zealand, part IV., Trans. N.Z. Inst., Vol. VI.," by Julius 

 Haast, Ph.D., F.R.S. 



On page 140 of Vol. VI. of the Transactions of the Now Zealand Institute, 

 Mr. Potts reprints, from the introduction of Dr. Puller's "Birds of New 



