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both in them and the County Council, holding the position of Chairman in both bodies.

The Duvauchelle’s of to-day is a very different place from that of the old times, when the saw-mill was first established. Where the mighty totaras once proved a home for thousands of native birds, good succulent grasses nourish stock which brings wealth to their proprietors and revenue to the Colonial Government. Many regret the passing away of the old order of things, and sentimentalise over the loss of those timbered solitudes where supple-jacks were thick, and the wild pig luxuriated; but we cannot help fancying that to the thinking person the present landscape is far more gratifying. True gloomy Rembrandt-like shadows have disappeared, and the tui no longer plumes his jewelled wings on the summit of some forest monarch; but in the stead of the past beauties are smiling slopes of grass, which carry in thousands those gentle friends of man, whose feet are truly said to make golden the soil over which they pass. It must not for a moment be thought that the settlers in Duvauchelle’s have had no idea of preserving the original loveliness of the valley. A large patch of bush has been saved near the Summit, and endeavours have been made to encourage all vegetation sheltering the water courses with most satisfactory results. The konini, the tutu, the ribbon wood, and dozens of other aboriginals spread a grateful shade over the waters, and lessen evaporation, while giving intense satisfaction to the artistic taste. Nor is this all, for on all sides rise plantations of trees from other countries. Of these the blue gums have best repaid their growers. In one place on the flat they reach an altitude of at least an hundred feet, rising side by side straight and graceful. The pinus insignis has also done well, and the macrocarpa fairly, but the larch does not seem to thrive with that luxuri-