120 



I must now state, in conclusion (in justice to our insect), that in addition 

 to its known functions as a scavenger, I believe it to be an important agent in 

 the fertilization of flowers. I have often observed it extracting honey, and I 

 have no doubt that pollen grains becoming attached to the delicate fringe of 

 hairs on its foot, or entangled in the coarse hairs upon its legs and body, are 

 those conveyed from the stamens to the stigmatic surfaces, even in the case of 

 dioecious plants. There is in fact no doubt that, although its more disagreeable 

 habits are those which are most striking, it will be found upon closer 

 observation to possess, in common with all God's creatures, other habits which 

 ought to render it less obnoxio^^s to man. 



Art. XVI. — On the A hsence of the Eel from the Tipper Waters of the 

 Waiau-ua and its Tributaries. By W. T. L. Tr avers, F.L.S. 



[Bead before the Wellington Philosophical Society, November 12, 1870.] 



During one of raj earliest visits to a cattle station which I hold in the Yalley 

 of the Upper Waiau, a large river rising in and flowing along the eastern base 

 of the Spencer Mountains, in the Nelson Province, I was informed by my 

 manager that no Eels were to be found, either in the main river or in any of 

 its tributaries, above a line of rapids which occurs some thirty miles below its 

 source. Considering the almost universal distribution of the Eel in New 

 Zealand, I was much struck by this statement, which at the time I was 

 inclined to doubt, but which has since received at least negative proof, from 

 the circumstance that although we have frequently fished for Eels in various 

 parts of the main river and of its tributai-ies, and Lake Guyon, the outlet of 

 which falls into it, we have never found any trace of them. 



The absence of Eels in the Lower Danube (a fact apparently well attested) 

 has been attempted to be accounted for, in part by the increased coldness of the 

 water received below Ulm, from the great tributaries which rise in the Alps, 

 but, as I shall hereafter show, this alleged cause is open to doubt ; even if this 

 opinion were well founded however, it would not account for their absence 

 from the Waiau, for although all its waters above the line of rapids referred to 

 are derived from mountains of great altitude, and snow-capped throughout the 

 hottest seasons of the year, and its waters are necessarily very cold, yet they do 

 not differ in these respects from adjacent rivei'S in which Eels are abundant. For 

 example, the River Clarence, flowing to the eastward of, and parallel to, the 

 Waiau, and within a distance of only four or five miles, and rising in the same 

 chain of mountains ; and the River Maruia, a large ti^butary of the Buller, 

 also rising in the same chain and flowing to the westward, and, for a short 

 distance, parallel to the Waiau (the waters of both of which are even colder 



