184 
NATURE NOTES. 
funerals, I had never been able to authenticate these statements, 
or been able to discover if the rosemary branches were dipped 
in water as in the olden times. Bending lower over my herb- 
bed, I gathered a few sprigs of rosemary, and the thought passed 
through my mind that however completely the old traditions 
might have been effaced, here at least was a living exponent 
and historian of the joys and sorrows of the past, speaking for 
ever of the days that are gone, and creating a sweet bond of 
union between our lives and the lives of our forefathers. 
“ Rosemarie is for remembrance 
Between us daie and night ; 
Wishing that I may alwaies have 
You present in my sight.” 
With the old song running in my head, I gathered together the 
rosemary branches and left the sunny garden ; and from my 
herb-bed rose up many mingled odours, both fragrant and 
aromatic, whilst the sunshine rested alike on the delicate grey 
spikes of the lavender, on the full purple flowers of the sage, and 
on the lowly blossoms of the thyme and marjoram. 
C. H. 
JANUARY IN NEW ZEALAND. 
HIS, the first month of the New Year, has been wet. 
Instead of the dry brown grass that sheep farmers 
love to see at this period, the herbage is green and 
lush, and harbours all sorts of parasites. The summer 
so far has been strangely changeable, every few days of hot 
sultry weather ending in heavy rain. 
After one of these storms of almost tropical violence fresh 
land-slips are nearly sure to be noticeable. Indeed, over almost 
the whole of the North Island these slips are quite a typical 
feature in the scenery. They occur especially where the ancient 
vegetation of bush or fern has been destroyed, and the rotting 
roots no longer bind the earth. Our hills, too, are chiefly 
formed of papa rock, with girdles of limestone cropping out 
regularly. Upon this papa or rock clay rests a soil of loam or 
peat, and where the hills are steep the slopes are scarred and 
gouged and seamed with slips, their tracks at first white, and 
later marked with the black-green luxuriance of thistles and 
sow-thistles. Sometimes these avalanches of earth rush through 
even standing lush and brush the fences away like cobwebs. Slips 
are a great annoyance to the shepherds, for they are most effec- 
tual traps for the sheep. In one of these mud streams dis- 
covered too late I have known as many as twenty dead sheep to 
be taken out ; not even the sight of one of these silly animals 
