224 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



a paper by the writer in the forthcoming volume of '• Transactions of 

 the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science." A wide 

 field opens up to anyone who will study the native names of the fauna 

 and flora of the Polynesian islands, and it will surprise those who have 

 not paid any attention to the matter, to find many of our common 

 Maori names of plants, birds, fish, insects, etc., known all over the 

 Pacific, and applied to the same, or nearly the same species. — S. Percy 

 Smith. 



Notes on Eels. — The following notes of occurrences which I 

 witnessed myself will perhaps throw some light on the question as to 

 whether eels go to sea to breed, and as to the possibility of their 

 overcoming difficulties which might seem at first sight beyond their 

 powers. There is a fine stream at the Bay of Islands named Waitangi, 

 the waters of which contain eels in abundance from its source to its 

 mouth. .It joins the sea at Waitangi (near where the celebrated Treaty 

 was signed), and there it falls about 30 feet ovjr an old lava flow, the 

 face of which is quite perpendicular and even overhanging. The 

 channel is about 50 yards wide on the top of the falls, but ordinarily 

 the water does not occupy the whole bed. Places are therefore left 

 dry, or over which a very thin coating of water serves to keep the rough 

 surface of the basaltic rock quite wet with little running streams here 

 and there. In 1874, I observed the surface of the rock where the 

 water was trickling over it, to be covered with hundreds of tiny eels 

 averaging from two inches to sis inches in length, wriggling their 

 way up the perpendicular face of the rock, and making headway 

 against the the thin rill of falling water from above. The water in 

 the basin below the fall is salt, or nearly so, as the tide flows up to 

 the foot of the fall. The rock in this instance is quite rough, as all 

 basaltic rocks are, and it is no doubt due to this roughness that 

 the eels are able to ascend. The Maoris told me they were well 

 acquainted with the fact, and that they often scrape the little eels 

 into baskets for food. I would not have believed it possible that eels 

 could have ascended this perpendicular face had I not witnessed it. 



A considerable portion of the main Chatham Island is occupied 

 by a lagoon named Te Whanga, the water of which is brackish, but 

 which has no permanent connection with the sea, except perhaps by 

 infiltration iu two places, where its margins neaidy approach the 

 ocean. At one of these places named Te Awa patiki, there is a wide, 

 dry channel connecting the lagoon with the sea beach, and here at 

 rare intervals and during heavy north-east gales the sea makes a 

 breach into the lagoon. This channel is about ten chains wide, and 

 ordinarily is occupied by dry, soft sand. In 18G8, when riding past 

 there I found that the sea had risen over the ordinary level and had 

 been running into the lagoon, but as it was low water the channel 

 was again quite dry. In one part, a small arm of the lagoon extended 

 towards the sea, but ceased at a hundred yards from high water 

 mark. This arm was about 20 feet wide and. 2 feet deep. To my 

 great surprise I found it to be full of a wriggling, seething mass of 

 live eels, some of very large size, as much indeed as three or four feet 

 long, whilst the dry sands on either side and towards the sea were 

 covered thickly by dead or dying eels. The eels were so thick in the 



