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Memoranda of an Excursion 
tional beauty to the delightful scenery of .the New 
Zealand rivers, to witness this sportive fish leaping out 
of the water on a still fine summers evening. It is not 
an unusual thing for one of those fish to leap into a 
passing canoe. In some rivers, where they are very 
plentiful, the natives moor their canoes off in the stream 
on a fine night, and arc sometimes rewarded with a 
fine fish or two for their trouble. The New Zealanders, 
however, take them in large quantities in their nets. 
Landing at Tutaimatai, at the head of the river, we 
proceeded on over Te Ranga, a high hill, from the 
summit of which on a clear day the traveller has a most 
magnificent and picturesque bird’s-eye view, extending 
over the whole of the Bay of Islands, and northwards 
beyond the Cavalles. The dense forests of Dammara 
and other pines, with their foliage of every hue, cresting 
the hills in the immediate foreground, and spreading 
up the steep sides of the eminence beneath his feet, 
heighten, not a little, the surpassing loveliness of the 
scene. Those gallant little gentlemen, the Cicada, 
who make— 
“ Their summer lives one ceaseless song,” 
were rattling away at a merry rate on the different trees 
and shrubs around. Of these insects, several species 
inhabit New Zealand. One species of a light emerald- 
green, and another of a golden colour, are peculiarly 
charming: the natives call them, Tatarakihi. Descend¬ 
ing Te Ranga, I detected, growing in a mossy bank, a 
fine Pterostylis, with numerous lanceolate bracts, its 
radical leaves and perianth much like those of P. col- 
lina, with which elegant species it has close affinity. 
Passing through a swamp at the base of the hill, a fine 
bird of the Ardea genus, rose gracefully and slowly 
