94 SAIL FROM NEW ZEALAND. 



of all the woods of the country. A short search 

 among' the damp stones and moss brought to light 

 some small but interesting land shells, consisting 

 of a pupiform Cyclostoma, a Cwrocolla, and five 

 species of Helix. This leads me to mention, that 

 although the number of New Zealand land shells 

 hitherto described scarcely exceeds a dozen, this does 

 not imply any scarcity of such objects in the country, 

 as an industrious collector from Sydney, who spent 

 nine months on the northern and middle islands, 

 obtained nearly a hundred species of terrestrial and 

 fluviatUe mollusca. The scarcity of birds during- 

 our walk surprised me, for the only one which I saw 

 on shore was a solitary \mg?i^e,v (Halcyon vagans): 

 during our ascent of the Keri-Keri, however, many 

 ducks {Anas superciliosd) flew past the boat, and 

 gulls, terns, and two kinds of cormorants were nu- 

 merous. 



Returning to the road by a path which avoided 

 the swamps our guide had taken us through, in 

 little more than half an hour we reached Mr. Kemp's 

 house, and after partaking of that gentleman's hos- 

 pitahty returned to the ship. On our way we landed 

 at sunset for an hour upon a small island, which 

 will probably long be remembered by some of the 

 party as having furnished us with a supper of very 

 excellent rock-oysters. 



Having effected the necessary repairs, and dis- 

 posed of the decked boat, we left New Zealand on 

 May 22nd on our homeward passage. On July 



