﻿372 Proceedings. 



tlie wliole country was populated, one tribe got stronger than the others, and 

 spread over the Islands, conquering the rest and carrying with them their own 

 names and traditions, which may have nothing to do with their first coming, 

 but refer only to their early fights among themselves. 



Mr. Travers said that the chief point of his paper was to show that the 

 usually svipposed date qf the Maori landing, about 350 years ago, was much 

 too recent, as it was impossible that so much could have been done in so short 

 a time. 



2. " Notes on the Lizards of New Zealand, with Descriptions of Two New 

 Species," by Captain F. "W". Hutton, F.G.S. (See Transactions, p. 167). 



Dr. Hector said that the lizard from White Island, described by Captain 

 Hutton, was the only one ever obtained there. He believed that the specimen 

 had been brought to the Colonial Museum by the officers^of H.M.S. ' Brisk,' 

 in 18G8. 



3. " Observations on the New Zealand Bats," by F. J, Knox, L.II.C.S.E. 

 (See Transactions, p. 186.) 



Sixth Meeting. ?>Qth September, 1871. 

 W. T. L. Travers, F.L.S., President in the chair. 



1. " Notes on the Habits of some of the Birds of New Zealand," by 

 W. T. L. Travers, F.L.S. (See Transactions, p. 206). 



Captain Hutton drew attention to the important bearing on the Darwinian 

 hypothesis of the peculiarity of the Whio, or Blue Duck, mentioned by Mr. 

 Travers, which does not show any solicitude for the safety of its young 

 like other ducks. Now the Blue Duck, having no allied forms found elsewhere, 

 must be considered as one of the original inhabitants of New Zealand, whereas 

 all the other ducks are, in comparison, colonists, their generic centres of dis- 

 tribution being in the northern hemisphere. There never having been any 

 destructive animals in New Zealand till man came, this original duck never 

 seems to have acquired instinctive fear, which the ancestors of the other 

 ducks must have acquired by experience in other parts of the world before 

 they migrated to New Zealand. 



Dr. Hector stated his experience that Wekaswere much more easily snared 

 in the South Island than in the North, owing, no doubt, to the greater 

 experience they had acquired of the treachery of men in the island which had 

 the denser native population. 



2. " On some Experiments showing the Relative Value of New South 

 Wales and New Zealand Coals as Gas-producing Materials," by J. Bees 

 George, C.E. (See Transactions, p. 146.) 



