578 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
1,700 feet higher than Christchurch, this alone would make a 
difference of 8 deg. F. Dr. Hector had told him that cyclonic 
disturbances sometimes moved to the west, which would account 
for some changes of wind. 
2. ‘Notice of a Thermal Spring near Lyttelton,” by Mr. R. | 
M. Laing. The spring is situated about 2} miles from Lyttel- 
ton on the Governor’s Bay Road, and is close to the sea. The 
temperature remains uniform at 73 deg. F. There is not much 
taste in the water, but it deposits a small quantity of calc-sinter 
in the shape of incrustations and stalactites. 
Mr. Gray stated that there was another warm spring in 
Gebbie’s Valley containing sulphate of magnesia ; it was undrink- 
able. He would gladly examine the deposits from this spring. 
Mr. Laing said that Dr. Haast had told him of another spring 
near the Ferry Road with a temperature of 65 deg.; he had 
also heard of another at Kaituna, which was said to give off 
steam. 
3, “ Onthe N.Z. Coccide,” by W. M. Maskell. 
WELLINGTON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 
Wellington, 26th September, 1883.—Hon. G. Randall Johnson, 
President, in the chair. 
Papers—1. “On a new species of Lycopodium,” by Mr. T. Kirk, 
F.L.S. This species, to which the name of L. gyvacile is given, is 
intermediate between L. vavium and L. billardiert. 
2. “On a new kind of bird-catching tree,” by Mr. R. H. 
Govett. The author described aspecimen ot Pisonia brunoniana found 
at New Plymouth, and raised the question as to whether the viscid 
secretion on the fruit was designed for catching birds or insects for 
food (as in Droseva?) or as a contrivance for having the seeds 
transported and distributed. Dr. Hector and Mr. T. Kirk thought 
the latter was the case, the fruit adhering to the feathers of birds, 
and thus being carried away. Mr. Kirk identified the plant as 
Pisonia umbellifera. 
3. The President exhibited the skin of a rat from Poverty 
Bay, which the natives said was the true Maori rat. Dr. 
Buller believed the so-called Maori rat which lived in 
trees, was identical with the common Mus rvattus of Europe. Dr. 
Hector said that he concurred in this opinion, but Prof. Hutton 
had inferred the former existence ot another species from bones 
found in a sub-fossil state. This was a flesh-eating rat, and there- 
fore not Mus vatius, which species is very common in bush country, 
and comes into Wellington during hard winters. In the northern 
forests they become very fat at this season, when they feed on the 
bark of the Patete (Melicope ternata). They also feed largely on 
wild honey, and after Christmas are often found in large numbers ~ 
dead or stupefied at the foot of the Puriri trees (Vitex littovalis), 
being poisoned by the honey which in some years is dangerous 
and even fatal to human life at that season. 
Mr. McKay said that rat bones were found mixed with moa 
bones in situations which suggested that the rat and the moa were 
contemporaries. (Specimens were exhibited to illustrate this.) 
Either the moa was not so ancient an inhabitant of these islands, 
or the rat must have been here anterior to the Maori immigration. 
If Mus vattus existed here with the moa, by what agency was it 
—— eee 
