NATURALIST FIELD CLUB.

Otago Witness, Issue 1248, 30 October 1875, Page 4

NATURALIST FIELD CLUB.

The Naturalists' Field Club had a very enjoyable meeting on Saturday last. Whether for scenery, for flowers, for zoological specimens, or for quietness? the Executive of the Field Club could not have chosen a better spot than the Tomahawk Valley, Lagoon, and Bay for their excursion on -Saturday morning last. The day was most propitious, and not a few availed themselves of it. . Two groups left town, one about 10 a:m., the second about 2 p.m. The former, by reason of the larger amount of time at their disposal, made a very careful search for botanical and zoological specimens. Tomahawk Valley is not extremely rich in flowerless plants, but in flowering plants it has a great variety, and many of the rarer forms were found in bloom on Saturday last. But the chief interest in Saturday's collections centred in' some remarkable forms of zoophytes that were found in the tidal pools by the Tomahawk caves. The sides of these pools literally teemed with animal life of every hue and colour. First were the retiring anemones, spreading ' their tentacles out so like a composite flower (the coral flowers of the older naturalists)'; then their cousins, the different -varieties of zoophytes so closely resembling delicate'seaweed, and it was among these an object of interest was discovered. Among the various for msthat have been gathered on the New Zealand coast, all that have to far been described belong to those families in whioh the creatures can retract themselves into little cup» or domiciles developed from the outside of ,the skin. One or two who have specially worked at these creafures, judging partly from analogy, partly from scraps of material incidentally gathered, suspected that before long some specimens would be found that had no cups or domiciles for the little zdoids, and Saturday's excursion set their doubts at rest; for in some of the pools whole colonies of these naked creatures were found, all belonging to one' species, that in very many characters closely resembles one of the same family found' on the Shetland coast, in the Northern hemi- ■ sphere. In the same pools ■ were found the ribbon like spawn of a peculiar leatherycased mollusc ; also several young members, of the sea lily or sea squirt— that stalked' form which is so common about the wooden floating dock at Port Chalmers. The majority of the morning and the afternoon groups of the Club having met and exhibited • the treasures of the day, a return to town was effected just before dusk,. aIL wellpleased with the day's work. The next: excursion will be to Ravensbourne, on Satur? day,, November Oth. , , ■