Researches By Museum

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1021, 11 July 1930, Page 10

Researches By Museum

RECORDS BEING PUBLISHED

AX excellent movement to preserve data of the scientific work of the divisions of the Auckland Institute and Museum has been inaugurated successfully. The first publication of ‘‘Records of the Auckland Institute and Museum" has just appeared. The council of the museum believed that a national service to science can be performed by the publication of the complete details of researches.

The director of the museum, Mr. Gilbert Archer, who supervises the publication of the museum records, stresses the part played by an institution such as the Auckland War Memorial Museum in the national life. For comparison of researches in a simple manner, it is obviously a good plan to have available the records of each museum.

Canterbury Museum has published records since about 1911. In the first number of the Auckland records, there are descriptions of new species of lepidoptera in the collection of the museum, by Mr. Alfred Philpott, honorary entomologist, an account of the paryphantidae of New Zealand, their hypothetical ancestry, with descriptions of new species, and a new genus, by Mr. A. W. P. Powell, concbologist and palaeontologist, and an intensive study of Piraunui Pa. at Matawhana, Waikato. Mr. L. W. Delph, of King's College, and Mr. Archey. CLARKE COLLECTION Mr. Philpott was able to obtain most of the material for his account from the Charles E. Clarke collection, recently presented to the museum—an indication of the importance of new collections in museum work and the probability of the appearance of new avenues of study. Mr. Philpott’s descriptions of butterflies and moths are particularly valuable as a contribution to the accounts of the species in New Zealand. The Clarke collection includes insects taken in all Darts of the Dominion, but most were taken in the South Island. More study is presented by many other species in the collection. In his account of land snails, Mr. Powell emphasises that study of the distribution of paryphantidae has long been recognised to be of great value in suggesting former land connections, for immersion in fresh or salt water would kill individuals or the life within the egg. The inferences are that continuous land is essential for dispersal, and that the species must have developed approximately within or close to the areas they occupy at present.

Mr. Powell has sought to show that many of the so-called colour variations of land snails are constant within definite geographic areas, and,

for this reason alone, are worth subspecific distinction. Mr. Powell has presented intensive descriptions of species of the larger New Zealand land snails and has associated them with certain geographic areas. " Ancient land subsidences in New Zealand have served to isolate groups of land snails; study of their species can, because of this, give an indication of geographic development in this country. Subsequent uplifts of land have given New Zealand new varieties of land snails. Consideration of the separation of species in the North Island and the South Island, for instance, subscribes to the belief that the formation of Cook Strait was comparatively recent. The weka was the most formidable enemy of the land snails, but extermination is being hastened by introduced birds and animals. Mr. Powell collected data for his paper for more than four years in representative localities in Auckland. Taranaki, Wellington, Westland. Nelson and Marlborough. MAORI FORTIFICATION The description of Piraunui Pa. south of Arapuni, by Mr. Delph and Mr. Archey, is interesting as a care-fully-prepared study of the construction of a Maori fortified village on a rock-capped headland. The flat, portion of a spacious marae in this pa is high upon a broad spur, and below are a series of terraces on both sides of the narrowing ridge. A narrower and much steeper walled ridge, divided by a deep fosse, is the strongly-protected approach to the stronghold on the vertical-sided spur. The site of the stronghold must have been almost impregnable in the days of Maori warfare.

Besides the description of a pa ■which *was a model of Maori village construction in such country, an account of the types of store-pits is given. Piraunui was built and inhabited dv Ngati-Raukawa. The study of the pa is valuable as an addition to the number of accounts of Maori village construction. No regular dates of issue are yet iu view for the museum records and publication will be subject to the amount of data available.