ZOOLOGY. 
143 
The abdomen itself was oval, and one inch and a-half long and 
nearly an inch broad, of a yellowish grey colour, with three brown 
longitudinal stripes. 
Since my arrival in Nelson, Messrs. J. Eochfort and Smith 
having returned from an ascent of Mount Arthur, the former 
gentleman related to me that near the summit, under a rock par¬ 
tially covered with snow, they had seen a spider of enormous size ; 
he made me a sketch of it, which coincides singularly with my 
own observations ; a fact worth noticing, if we consider that there 
is a difference in altitude of at least 5,000 feet between the places 
where this spider has been met with. 
In the forest near the Maruia plains I was once stung by a 
small animal, which, on examination of it in a partly crushed state, 
l was convinced must be a true scorpion, but of a diminutive size, 
two lines long. The sting, however, proved to be no worse than 
the bite of a mosquito, although the swelling lasted a little longer. 
I am not prepared to say if the animal had been in the branches 
collected for bedding and put in the tent, or if it issued from some 
rotten wood lying near it. 
Am ongst, the Coleoptera (beetles) I found not one worth 
noticing particularly. 1 met with but few of them, and those have 
been already described. 
A great scarcity of Lepidoptera (butterflies, &c.) was remark¬ 
able even on the grassy plains; for, with the exception of a few 
specimens of Vanessa Gronerilla, Cynthia Cardii, and the common 
Nyctemera Doubledayi, I think that there was nothing which 
attracted my attention. But I met with a variety of moths, for 
the greatest part small, but often in such immense numbers that 
they became troublesome. 
One evening, in the middle of January, at Eoto-iti, a small 
moth, belonging to Tineites, came into our tent, in such quanti¬ 
ties, as night came on, that it was impossible to continue to write. 
They actually filled the inkstand with their bodies, put the can¬ 
dles out, and covered everything. The next evening we shut the 
tent as closely as possible, and then we were not so much mo¬ 
lested, but they pattered against the canvas in such numbers as to 
give the idea of a shower of rain, and the next morning the roof 
was literally covered with their bodies. They became fewer when 
it rained the third evening, so that we could again leave the tent 
open to enjoy the fresh evening breeze. 
Amongst the Diptera, the animal the most diffused over the 
whole country is the sandfly (Simulium)Although everywhere 
present, their principal abode is near rivers and the sea shore, 
where they form really a plague for the traveller. From Captain 
Cook to our own days, every explorer has endeavoured to de¬ 
scribe, with strong expressions, the intensity ol his sufferings from 
this insect torment. . , 
Notwithstanding their minute size, their bite is painful, and 
