AND SHELLS, OF NEW ZEALAND. 73 
Europeans. Many kinds of butterflies and moths, 
with a few beetles, and forest bugs ; which latter 
are exceedingly unpleasant, when approached, on 
account of the fetid smell which they emit. Spi- 
ders are found in vast abundance among the 
fern ; and caterpillars, of a very destructive kind, 
in the cultivations. — These form the principal 
portion of the insects which are found in New 
Zealand. There are none whose bite or sting is 
at all dreaded ; nor, when you lie down to rest 
at night, need you fear any thing worse than a 
few harmless spiders crawling about you, more 
anxious to escape from you than you can possi- 
bly be to escape from them. 
The shells on the coast of New Zealand would 
scarcely repay the naturalist for any long search. 
There are but few varieties. The French Natu- 
ralists, who were very eager in these scientific 
pursuits, were not able to make many additions 
to their collections, on the coast of New Zealand. 
Conchologists, however, consider all, even the 
most common shells, from this place, as curio- 
sities, and are anxious to obtain them,^ The 
natives are not good divers: they do not spend, 
by any means, so much of their time in the water 
as the islanders more to the north of them do ; 
owing to the temperature of their climate being 
more moderate than that of their neighbours. 
* For a List of New-Zealand Shells recently obtained, see 
Appendix. 
