simple. Perhaps the most important is a good stout alpaca umbrella, which should be used in this way :-On arrival at the collecting ground it should be opened, inverted, and held in such a position that the insects, shaken or dislodged off plants by being beaten with a stick three or four feet long, fall into the net thus formed. When thus caught, they must be immediately secured, the larger ones being transferred to a wide-mouthed bottle containing bruised laurel leaves, or, if these cannot be obtained, some sawdust and two or three lumps of cyanide of potassium (poison). On returning home, the beetles should be picked out by emptying the whole contents on a sheet of paper; but if they are to be sent away to be named, they ought to be placed in another bottle, containing some bruised or chopped up laurel leaves, because, when so treated, they keep in good condition for three or four weeks, and so relaxed that the mouth and limbs of each insect can be easily opened out for examination. The smaller insects should be taken out of the umbrella and put into a separate bottle. I find a camomile-pill bottle the most useful for that purpose, it fits easily into the waistcoat pocket; but the cork should be perforated so that a stout quill two or three inches in length may pass through it and project, in order to form a tube or scoop. The mouth of the quill is placed over an insect, the bottle inclined upwards, and it slides down. It will be evident that without some killing mixture the insects would soon destroy one another when in the bottle; saw-dust will not answer the purpose very well, as it occasions a great deal of subsequent labour when picking them out, besides which it is almost certain, in the hands of an inexperienced collector, to result in the loss of many of the more minute species, and, moreover, most of them will be covered with the fine dust which will tenaciously adhere and be extremely difficult to remove afterwards. I find the best plan is to use bruised laurel, and I invariably manage matters thus:-For such a bottle, I take three or four leaves, hold them flat on the side of an axe laid on the floor, and with the back of a tomahawk or hammer pound away along the edges of the leaves until they are reduced to a pulp; this is then rammed into the bottle with a pencil until the top of the pulp forms a tolerably smooth surface. The insects can thus be almost instantly killed, will be quite clean, soft and easily manipulated. The process may seem rather formidable at first. sight, but with a little practice the operator will easily prepare such a collecting bottle in ten minutes, the pulp remains good for a fortnight, and, if not strong enough after that, one bruised leaf will make it so; but it must be borne in mind that the pulp should be renewed at least once a month. For dealing with logs, a tomahawk is required; it should fit into a leathern case, and be secured by a belt round the waist. Some localities are more favourable than others. If possible, a clearing in the forest should be selected, but even a pathway will suffice, provided there is room enough to open the umbrella. All the native plants, half-rotten branches of trees, and even rushes, should be beaten. The loose bark should be stripped off trees and logs, and carefully examined, so that the destroyers may be found. In conclusion, I may add that I am always willing to examine collections sent to me for that purpose, and will return a named specimen of each species to the collector within a month or so. The preservation of insects will be dealt with in the following number of this journal. A VISIT TO THE WEKA PASS ROCK-PAINTINGS. BY W. M. MASKELL. Everybody in the colony has heard of the Weka Pass RockPaintings. Known for several years to a few people, these curious works of art were first brought under general notice in the presidential address of Dr. von Haast to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, in 1877 (Transactions N.Z. Institute, vol. x., p. 44). Since then speculation has been freely indulged in concerning them. Some attribute them to the Maoris; some to an earlier race of aborigines; some to Cingalese or Tamil sailors, cast away in New Zealand; one authority to Buddhist missionaries endeavouring to enlighten the Maori mind; and a great many to European shepherds, shearers, or drovers. From time. to time also it has been stated that different Europeans, settlers of various classes, have declared themselves the actual authors of the paintings. Dr. von Haast, in his address, expresses the hope that members of the Institute would aid in the elucidation of the question, "which may throw considerable light upon the pre-historic inhabitants of these fair islands." And it was with a view to some such assistance, ever so slight, that during the first week in November, 1881, pretty generally holiday time, a party of nine, almost all members of the Institute, proceeded to the Weka Pass to inspect the rock-paintings. Nothing could have been fairer or more promising than the weather of Friday morning, November 11, and, indeed, the promise was well kept during the two days of our trip. A punctual muster brought seven of us to the station for the early morning train for Amberley; the other two were "collected" at a a wayside station. All told, the party formed a very fair representative body. Art and archæology, commercial, legal, and mathematical acumen, scientific and classical research, found their embodiment in some one or other amongst us; so that we had the means not only of extracting from the journey the necessary holiday enjoyment, but of procuring, to a great extent, a sufficiently fair guide to correct judgment on the paintings themselves. During the time occupied in reaching Amberley there was plenty of opportunity for inspection of the country passed through; and, without now desiring to run into uncalled-for ecstacies, it may be safely said that on such a morning no settler in New Zealand need require excuse for feeling proud of the work done and the results achieved, level and tame as the plains might appear to eyes accustomed to the more varied beauties of hill and vale; there was a richness in the very flatness of the country, a wealth of deep green vegetation, a suggestion of full garners and fat herds in the closely packed farms and homesteads, a thorough air of agricultural prosperity in all that the eye rested on, that could not but gladden the heart. To borrow the words of a colonial poet "from the top of the Port Hills, in wide expansion spreads the myriad-coloured plain, Dusky woodlands, emerald meadows, laughing fields of waving grain. Arriving at Amberley, we found a four-horse coach, specially engaged, waiting to carry us on the sixteen miles or so to our destination. Amberley, a prosperous little village, where, seven or eight years ago, there could be seen nothing but tusssocks and sheep, is the present terminus of the northern railway; at least the line is finished to the Waipara River, some six miles further, but only goods trains run thereon at present. From the Waipara the railway cuttings are being made through the Weka Pass to Waikari, and the opening of this line is supposed to be fixed for January, 1882. At Waikari (the northern extremity of the Pass) the railway, for the present, stops dead at a collection of half a dozen shanties and a public house; in the more or less immediate vicinity of which are, I believe, several thousand acres of land under crop, but these are not visible from the "hotel." Whether the Government will for some years to come carry the railway farther north, I cannot say; but the proposed West Coast Railway scheme will, if effected, soon connect Waikari, Amberley, and Christchurch with the rich goldfields and timber forests of Westland. But these are matters with which our excursion party nothing to do. Two things, however, formed the subject of much comment amongst some of our number. One was the absence of, and the urgent necessity for, extensive plantations in the district north of Amberley. The whole of the northern portion of Canterbury suffers greatly from the dryness of its climate. When a north-westerly wind blows, as it does, off and on, half the year, the clouds are seen rigidly confined to the hill ranges and pouring down there quantities of rain which, wasted in the mountains, would be a godsend on the plain. Around Christchurch, for several miles, the country is getting very well timbered, and I believe it to be a well-established fact that in this region the droughts are much less severe and the nor'-westers less blasting than formerly. About Amberley, and further north, trees are the exception rather than the rule, the climate is dry and parching, the winds hot and fierce. If every farmer would put in a few trees, no matter of what kind, it is probable that a beneficial change would be effected. At present one sees field after field, hundred acres after hundred acres-wheat, oats, grass, with scarcely a tree here and there-green enough perhaps in early spring, but parched and brown as soon as the summer heats come on, and totally without protection from the blast of the nor'wester. The other point was the unfortunate policy which threw into the hands of one man, for a mere pittance, scores of thousands of acres of magnificent land, of which he makes no use beneficial to any one but himself. This error was perpetrated before Canterbury had control of her lands, but the effect has been lasting. And, as we travelled through mile after mile of this gentleman's property, disgust found constant expression in the wish that nature, or some other power, would ere long deprive the owner of this magnificent expanse of the faculty of conserving a desert where thousands of willing farmers might settle in productive homesteads. But I must hasten on. Leaving Amberley shortly after nine, we reached the Waikari "Hotel" about noon. At once hungry nature asserted her claims, and a clamorous demand for food produced a substantial and excellent luncheon, to which the long journey of fifty miles and the clear fresh air made us do ample justice. One of our party, who had previously visited the rockpaintings, stated that they were situated a couple of miles from the Waikari. Leaving, therefore, our coach at the "hotel," we instructed the driver to wait a few hours there, and then to pick us up at the entrance of the pass on our return from the paintings, our purpose being to dine and sleep at another inn about the middle of the Pass. Strolling away past the cuttings of the railway and the busy hum of the numerous navvies at work, we turned off the high road close to a farm house, taking a by-road through the hills to what is called the "Basin Farm." This "basin," situated about a mile to the westward of the Pass itself, is cut off from it by a low rampart of hills, through which the Weka Creek, giving its name to the Pass, has cut its way in a gorge of limestone. The basin, indeed, which encloses the head waters of the creek (small swampy springs) gives one at first sight an idea that it was originally, or at least that it once contained, a small lake: but I am not geologist enough to say whether it did so or not. Speaking roughly, I should say that the area of the basin may be about 1,500 or 2,000 acres. Our road rose over the low rampart, and turning to the north-west led towards the homestead. But before reaching this we came at about the lowest portion of the basin, to the springs of the Weka Creek, and looked down the somewhat steepish gorge which it has cut through the rampart. The hills around are studded with limestone rocks projecting in all conceivable forms, but our eyes at once perceived two of these evidently answering to the term "rock-shelter;" for, sloping gently from the surface, their broad tops have been flattened and weathered, and the under surface has been, by some agency or other (I suppose water) hollowed out. Passing the smaller of these, our guide led us to the larger, on the hollow under side of which we found the rock-paintings of which we were in search. Much disappointment did the first view of the locality of the paintings cause; for it was abundantly clear that, whatever their nature or origin, whatever their interest, ethnological or archæological, artistic or quaint, their future existence is almost certainly extremely limited. The rock on which they are painted does not rise perpendicularly from the ground to its roof, but slopes back a little first. The owner of the land has taken advantage of the "shelter" to convert it into a cow house. The floor is covered with straw; the cattle make themselves at home in it; the milkers probably occupy their leisure moments in defacing the "paintings;" and between the rubbings of the cows, the scratchings of the labourers, and also, perhaps, of visitors, and general dirt and neglect, probably a few years more will entirely obliterate the whole affair. We spent a good long while examining the curious designs visible on the hollow surface of the rock shelter, and forming speculations as to their nature and origin. The first thing that struck us was the extraordinary number of them. From the plate given by Dr. von Haast in the "Transactions," it might be imagined that the "paintings" were not numerous; and although, in a phrase of his address here and there, he mentions that the rock is covered with them, yet he does not, I think, give any clear idea of the immense crowd of designs visible. In point of fact, the whole shelter wall, some sixty feet long and eight feet high, is covered with a labyrinth of drawings in black and red (the former very greatly predominating), mingled together, crossing each other, tangled up so inextricably that very careful and minute scrutiny would be required to unravel them. The scaling of the rock itself, and the constant rubbings and defacements to which it has been subjected, render it now a task of enormous difficulty to clearly decipher the paintings; but even when they existed in their primitive freshness, I imagince there must have been a good deal of confusion for the spectators. It occured to one or two amongst us that one means of deciding the question which had been raised as to the European or aboriginal authorship of the paintings might be found in an analysis of the pigment in which they were executed. For this purpose a few chips of the surface, carefully selected from spots already crumbling of their own accord, were taken away. It was not until after our return to Christchurch that I found in Dr. von Haast's address a statement that "the paint consists of Kokowai |