Of early days in the pastoral provinces we get contemporary sketches by Samuel Butler, L.J.  Kennaway, Lady Barker, and Archdeacon Paul.  Butler’s is the best done picture of the country, Kennaway’s the exactest of the settlers’ every-day rough-and-tumble haps and mishaps, and Lady Barker’s the brightest.  One of the volumes of General Mundy’s “Our Antipodes” gives a nice, light sketch of things as they were in the North Island in the first years of Governor Grey.  Dr. Hocken’s recent book has at once become the recognised authority on the first years of Otago, and also has interesting chapters on the South Island before settlement.  Fitzgerald’s selections from Godley’s writings and speeches is made more valuable by the excellent biographical sketch with which it opens.  Dr. Richard Garnett’s admirable “Life of Gibbon Wakefield” is the event of this year’s literature from the point of view of New Zealanders.

Of the books on the Eleven Years’ War from 1860 to 1871, Sir William Fox’s easily carries away the palm for vigour of purpose and performance.  Sir William was in hot indignation when he wrote it, and some of his warmth glows in its pages.  It is a pity that he only dealt with the years 1863-65.  Generals Carey and Alexander supply the narrative of the doings of the regulars; Lieutenant Gudgeon that of the militia’s achievements.  General Carey handles the pen well enough; not so his gallant brother-soldier.  Of Gudgeon’s two books I much prefer the Reminiscences, which on the whole tell more about the war than any other volume one can name.  Sir John Gorst describes the King Movement and his own experiences in the King’s country.  Swainson takes up his parable against the Waitara purchase.

Gisborne’s “Rulers and Statesmen of New Zealand,” though not a connected history, is written with such undoubted fairness and personal knowledge, and in so workmanlike, albeit good—­natured, a way, as to have a permanent interest.  Most of the many portraits which are reproduced in its pages are correct likenesses, but it is the pen pictures which give the book its value.

Of volumes by travellers who devote more or less space to New Zealand, the most noteworthy are Dilke’s brilliant “Greater Britain,” the volumes of Anthony Trollope, and Michael Davitt, and Froude’s thoughtful, interesting, but curiously inaccurate “Oceana.”  Mennell’s serviceable “Dictionary of Australasian Biography” gives useful details concerning the pioneer colonists.

Scientific students may be referred to the Works of Hooker and Dieffenbach, to Von Haast’s “Geology of Canterbury and Westland,” Kirk’s “New Zealand Forest Flora,” Sir Walter Buller’s “Birds of New Zealand,” Hudson’s “New Zealand Entomology,” and to the papers of Hector, Hutton and Thompson.

Dr. Murray Moore has written, and written well, for those who may wish to use the country as a health resort.