aquilina), partly under the belief (which still obtains with some folks) that that common British species is identical with this of New Zealand; or, at all events, that both plants were but varieties of one species, which I, however, do not believe, for they differ in several important particulars, particularly in the root itself. The experiments signally failed, very likely owing to the roots having been dug up and used fresh, and that perhaps at the wrong season of the year; besides, they did not go about its preparation and cooking in the right way. This is what the celebrated cryptogamist, the Rev. Mr. Berkeley, says about it: “The long creeping rhizoma of a variety of Pteris aquilina was formerly much used in New Zealand for food; but, if the New Zealand variety is not more palatable than our own, it is a very undesirable food* This statement has never failed to remind me of what the Maoris said and did when they first saw our mission wheat growing at the Bay of Islands, a vegetable production too, which they had long wished for, through having so often tasted bread, biscuit, and flour, of all which they were passionately fond. “What!” said they on seeing it in leaf, “Grass, it is only grass;” and then a little later, when early in ear, they hastily and eagerly tried some of its green half-filled grains, and spat them out with disgust and reproof to us.. The rhizoma of our own form of Pteris aquilina when roasted has just the slimy consistence, taste, and odour of ill-ripened brinjals” [Solanum melongena.—W.C.] “when cooked, than which nothing can be a worse compliment. The great objection, however, to this as an article of food is the nauseous mucilage. If the rhizoma, after being washed and peeled, is scraped, so as to avoid including the hard-walled tissue, and then mixed with a sufficient quantity of water, the mucilage will be dissolved, and after a few hours may be decanted,” etc.—(Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany, p. 519.) 2. The second is the succulent fruit of the karaka tree (Corynocarpus lœvigata), a genus confined to New Zealand, of which, also, only this one species is known. This fruit, or, rather, in common language, its nut or seed, was of inestimable value to the Maori as a common and useful article of vegetable food, second only in place to their prized kumara tuber; and I should have placed it before the fern-root, only it is not so common, being confined to the vicinity of the sea. In its raw state, however, it is a deadly poison; a small quantity sufficing to throw into convulsions and great and permanent distortions of the limbs, and to kill; but prepared and cooked, it is perfectly innocent and wholesome. The Maoris ate both the flesh (sarcocarp) of the fruit (a drupe) when fresh and ripe; and its kernel (embryo) or large seeds; it was this latter only that was poisonous in its raw state. Every autumn the Maoris removed in large numbers,—men, women, and children,—to the karaka woods and thickets on the sea-coast, to gather