LOCAL INTELLIGENCE

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 171, 22 April 1864, Page 3

LOCAL INTELLIGENCE

We hear that the Natives who lately took their departure for the seat of War from Petane were met on the road by the Rev. Father Reignier, and they acknowledged having taken three sheep as food on the road frcm that district. We believe the sheep were taken from Mr. Atkinson’s run. We learn that the Royal Commissioners of the International Exhibition shortly to be held at Dunedin, have requested and selected our townsman, Mr. Colenso, to write the Essay on the Botany of the North Island of New Zealand. From Mr. Colenso’s long and intimate acquaintance with New Zealand Botany, (as shewn in the large and splendidly illustrated Flora of New Zealand, 2 vols., A to., edited by Dr. Hooker, of the Royal Gardens, Kew, and published under the patronage of the Lords of the Admiralty,) we anticipate a good and able essay from his pen. And in congratulating Mr. Colenso on his honorable selection, (which we do the more readily from the fact of his having been wholly ignored in the matter of this approaching New Zealand Exhibition by his political friends (?) the present Provincial Executive,) we embrace the opportunity of expressing our opinion that the Royal Commission have made a very judicious selection. We also learn that the essays are to be seventeen in number, comprised under six heads, viz. : I. HISTORY. 1. On the'Native Race. 2. Province of Auckland. 3. Provinces bordering on Cook’s Straits—Wellington, Nelson, Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, and Marlborough. 4. Canterbury. 5. Otago and Southland. 11. STATISTICS. 1. Commercial, Pastoral, and Agricultural. 2. Vital Statistics. 3. On the diseases which occur in New Zealand. 4. Gold Mining, and Gold-Ilelds of New Zealand. 111. METEOROLOGY. 1. Of New Zealand. IV. GEOLOGY. 1. Of the North Island. 2. Of Nelson and Canterbury. 3. Of Otago. 4. Mineralogy and Practical Mining of Now Zealand. V. BOTANY. 1. Of the North Island, Geographical and Economic. 2. Of the South Island, ditto. VI. ZOOLOGY. 1. Of New Zealand and the neighbouring Seas.