312 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 



