As to tree-ferns of many kinds, their luxuriance is not to be surpassed. In some deep shady places I have seen them growing stems fully thirty feet high; while other green gullies are wholly overshadowed by great fronds which on the under side gleam like silver. Imagine the delight of losing yourself in such a dream of loveliness, and perhaps coming suddenly on a thicket of figs or peaches, loaded with ripe fruit! Then wandering homeward through the meadows, by the course of a sparkling brooklet, and gathering mushrooms and water-cresses in abundance, while overhead the larks are singing in chorus. Another luxury is the abundance of oysters. The island has a coast-line of about thirty miles, along which lie a succession of oyster-beds. Not content with covering the rocks, they grow on the lower branches of the beautiful “brine-sprinkled” _pohutakawa_ trees, which literally dip into the sea. And so we sit beneath their shadow and knock the oysters off with a sharp stone, and have feasts which any epicure might envy; for the oysters are of excellent flavour. I own that at first I did feel considerable repugnance to this method of eating my fellow-creatures (which certainly seemed near akin to the Fijian taste for eating various small fish alive); but having once been induced to try it, I plead guilty to being now foremost at every oyster picnic, being fully satisfied that the interesting mollusc must be devoid of nerves, and of all consciousness of the pleasures of existence! * * * * * _February 13._