566 APPENDIX C 



has also of late developed a vulture-like habit of congregating near any 

 sheep dead on the hills ; in the vicinity of the carcase, awaiting the process 

 of skinning, the expectant birds gather for their ghoulish meal." It is a 

 most remarkable fact that starlings do not seem to have reached Tutira, 

 though they have been extraordinarily abundant at Napier, only distant 

 about a score of miles. 



At p. 318, Mr Guthrie-Smith describes the mason fly (Ptson pruinosus, 

 Cameron) as one of the most remarkable of the alien insects on Tutira. 

 It is really a wasp, and belongs to the Family Sphegidse. He says it is 

 believed to have reached New Zealand in chinks and knots of Australian 

 lumber, and that it was noticed by the late Mr J.N. Williams in the late 

 sixties. It is recorded in the Index Faunee Novce-Zealandice (p. 98) as an 

 indigenous species, but Mr Guthrie-Smith says: "Unlike the black cricket, 

 it seems never to have received a Maori name — a fact in itself pointing to 

 a comparatively late naturalisation." Mr Howes is inclined to think it is 

 an introduction, as it is slowly spreading south. He met with it at Waipori 

 three years ago, and saw it for the first time in Dunedin later. 



Chapters XXIV to XXX deal at length with the naturalised alien flora of 

 Tutira, and give the date of introduction of many of the species recorded 

 on the run, and frequently also the mode of their carriage and spread. 

 A list of plants naturalised on Tutira prior to 1882 is followed by three 

 lists bringing down the catalogue to 1920, and the names are in approximate 

 order of their arrival. These lists, and the subsequent notes on many of 

 the introduced plants, are extraordinarily valuable from a naturalist's point 

 of view, for they represent careful and close observational work. 



I cannot follow this record in detail, but will only select a few facts to 

 supplement my own statements. It is stated at p. 252, that "owing to 

 the great extent of second- and third-class country sown, also to the parlous 

 state of the finances of the run in early days, cheap seeds were largely 

 purchased ; hundreds of bags of ' seconds,' of Yorkshire fog and warehouse 

 sweepings, have been at various times scattered broadcast on its pumiceous 

 areas." 



On p. 256 a list of plants whose seeds were brought in or attached to 

 sacks is given, and I quote the following passage, not only because it is a 

 true picture, but also because it illustrates remarkably well the author's 

 interesting and graphic style: 



" The average life of a sack is, I daresay, about five years, each sack in 

 its time playing many parts. Starting at the Bluff, the southernmost port 

 of the South Island, a sack may only become finally useless in the far north 

 of the North Island, having spread blights and noxious weeds from one 

 end of the colony to the other. It may commence its career with all sorts 

 of high ideals, with the determination to carry only Timaru wheat, Hawke's 

 Bay ryegrass, and Akaroa cock's-foot, but has in later life to abate the 

 lofty pretensions of youth and ultimately to submit to the carriage of 

 ordinary grain, ordinary ryegrass, and ordinary cock's-foot. Later, still 

 whole and presentable, our bag will be considered fit for tailings and oaten 

 chaff. It will now perhaps cross Cook Strait and be passed about a farm- 

 ing district bearing perhaps in one short jolt apples, in another onions, 



