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Easter Island is only about fifteen hundred miles from Mas-a-fura and Juan Fernandez, which was a little too far for them to follow the seals. The Pribyloffs were only three hundred miles away from a thickly populated chain of islands, and yet the Indians never found them. Probably they had plenty of travelling seals around their own shores. The Russians only found them ten years after the American war of independence and Captain Cook's time. So that the seals had hidden themselves well. The seals were, one after the other, hunted away from their old homes, first by natives in canoes, and then by modern navigators in ships. And it is wonderful how they tried to avoid man by seeking out the most distant and lonely islands in the ocean. It seems as if they had a hereditary knowledge—like the young cuckoos—of where the islands were and where they had to go to find a temporary home; or could it be that wandering seals found an island in the trackless sea and studied its suitability (owing to the absence of man, regardless of climate and all other conditions) for a home for themselves, and then marked down its position on their wonderful chart, in brain or memory, so that they could find it ever afterwards at any appointed time, though they may possibly have wandered through hundreds of islands and thousands of miles of sea? How the seals managed to do this I cannot even begin to think. The whole subject is outside of my mental horizon. I am not only deficient in the faculty, but in the machinery, for understanding what it is. As for " instinct," it is only a catchpenny way of solving the puzzle, because we see that with it they have used the very best of reasoning, perhaps better than we are capable of understanding. Instead of " instinct " for the animals, it is just as likely that man is wholly deficient in some of the most wonderful and useful qualities of mind. It is well known now that the seals go away from the Pribyloffs for two-thirds of the year, and make journeys of many thousands of miles, and return at the proper time almost to a day. This implies that they must always have a so-called " instinctive " knowledge of their position at sea. According to Dr. Conan Doyle the hair-seals in the Arctic Ocean perform a more difficult feat than this, which also gives a hint of how the native navigators may have used other seals. He writes, " For breeding purposes the seals all come together at a variable spot which is evidently prearranged among them, and as this place may be anywhere within many hundreds of square miles of floating ice it is no easy matter for the sealer to find it. The means by which he sets about it are simple but ingenious. As the ship makes its way through the loose ice-streams a school of seals is observed travelling through the water. Their direction is carefully taken by compass and marked on the chart. An hour afterwards perhaps another school is seen. This is also taken and marked. When those bearings have been taken several times the various lines upon the chart are prolonged until they intersect. At this point, or near it, it is likely that the main pack of seals will be found." Thus the old native navigators could have taken the direction of a school of seals, and have followed it by sun or stars till they saw another school to correct their course again; and in this way, at the beginning of the breeding season, they would be sure to find the rookeries and plenty of food and clothing-material waiting for them on the beaches. Seals' bones are very perishable, for they are nearly as scarce in Dusky Sound as Maori tools. I put a seal's carcase up on the land so that I might get the skeleton, but when I went for it a year or two after it was half-perished, and the bones in a worse condition than a sheep's would have been after ten or twenty years. This will account for the scarcity of their remains.

APPENDIX VI.

MOUNT EGMONT. The number of visitors to the North Egmont House and reserve during the past season was 1,022. The receipts totalled £141 155., inclusive of a Government grant of £50, and the expenditure was £112 Bs. Bd. ; the principal items under this category being—Caretaker, £31 6s. 2d.; tollkeeper, £5 ; house and cottage repairs, &c, £22 12s. 6d.; labour on tracks, £36 Is.; clearing and grassing upper paddock, £7 10s. The unexpended balance will be spent in further improvements to the house and tracks. The season just ended has been a record one as regards the number of visitors to the Northern House and its surroundings. The heavy traffic over the main track, coupled with the broken weather, has had the effect of damaging the roadway considerably, but the work done recently under the supervision of the Roads Department and North Egmont Committee will have the effect of keeping the track through the winter in fair condition ready for the opening of next season. The track from the North House towards the summit of the mountain will be opened out and improved, and also the pathway from the house to the Waiwakaiho Gorge, and thence on to Bell's Falls, will be reopened and made available to tourist and local visitors wishing to visit these undoubtedly charming spots. It is the North Committee's intention to keep the house open during the coming winter months. This is an experiment which it is hoped will prove successful, as the novelty of the surroundings and Egmont in its winter garb should prove attractive to the more hardy type of mountaineers. The popularity of the mountain as a health resort is becoming greater every day, and its recuperative powers are continually being recommended by the medical profession. The high 20—C. 1 App.