GENERAL NOTES. | 177 
UNIVERSITY HONOURS IN SCIENCE.—It will be gratifying 
to all in New Zealand interested in scientific work, and to the 
friends of Mr. Chas. Chilton, of Canterbury College, in particular, 
to learn that he passed his Honours Examination in Biology 
very successfully. - The examiner, Professor H. Alleyne Nichol- 
son, of St. Andrews, remarks on the research papers sent in by 
Mr. Chilton :—“ Three excellently worked out and well illustrated 
memoirs, showing a wide knowledge of the subject dealt with, 
both as regards * the ecient descriptions and the literature of 
the subject.” 
NEW ZEALAND SYSTEMATISTS.—We have much pleasure 
imadding to our lists the name /of -Mr. Richard Wm. 
_Fereday, solicitor, of Christchurch, and member of the Entomo- 
logical Society of London, as a worker on New Zealand Micro- 
Lepidoptera. Mr. Fereday’s contributions to our knowledge of 
this branch of science have been very numerous and valuable, as 
the pages of the New Zealand Institute Transactions testify. 
Any persons sending collections of moths and butterflies to Mr. 
Fereday, are requested to append date and place of capture. 
NAULTINUS SYLVESTRIS, Awller—In January, 1880, Dr. 
Buller described to the Wellington Philosophical Society a 
curious example of assimilative colouring which had come under 
his notice in the case of a tree-lizard, Naultinus sylvestris (Maori, 
Pirirewa), the reptile being brown with -yellow spots, thus 
resembling a common lichen (see New Zealand Institute Trans- 
actions, vol xiii, p. 419). Two other cases have lately come 
within my own cognizance. The one is that of a Pirirewa, which 
I caught several weeks ago in the Upper Wangaehu Valley, and 
which I sent down alive to a friend in Wanganui, who keeps 
such things as pets. Besides the ordinary markings, the reptile 
has along each side of its body five large patches of bright golden 
green, and its tail is of a silver-grey colour. I do not know 
whether this last marking arises from its having cast its tail at 
some time, and produced another, for though the change in the 
marking is quite sharply defined, the tail is, if anything, longer 
than ordinary. At first I thought the creature was a new variety, 
as its eyes were surrounded by rings of fiery red. Dr. Buller, 
however, on seeing it, found that this glowing appearance arose 
from masses of parasites, which it seems infest that portion of 
the Pirirewa. 
The other was a similar lizard which Mr. T. Adamson caught 
about the same time at Murimotu, and which was of a silvery- 
white colour, but with red eyes similar to mine. Mr. Adamson 
put the animal alive into a jar, intending to give it to some per- 
son who took interest in such matters. Ina few days, however, 
when he went to show it to a friend, he found it had vanished, 
and on enquiry it turned out that the Maoris, who are terrified 
at lizards, and who were afraid to visit the house while the rep- 
tile was there, had persuaded one of his family to let it go. This 
dread of lizards in the Maori race is very curious, as it seems to 
