reports, it would be a means of illiciting valuable information which might prove of some service to the Government (being as it is a very difficult matter to compile anything like a correct census of natives). This might go a long way to shew whether the aborigines really were dying out faster than they were breeding. Trust you will pardon the liberty I take in making the above suggestion. That notice which I sent you in my last letter corroborates the statement made by some of the Ngatitahinga on their return from Te Kuiti and reported by me on 19th May last. The notice apparently has been sent to them in consequence of their having leased the Akau