Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 39.djvu/9



By the death of Sir Walter Lawry Buller, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., D.Sc., the scientific world has sustained a heavy loss, more especially in ornithological circles, for his beautiful and exhaustive woiks on the history of the birds of New Zealand are well and widely known.

Sir Walter was the descendant of an ancient Cornish family, and the eldest son of the late Rev. James Buller, a veteran missionary, and was born at Newark, in the Bay of Islands, on the 9th October, 1838. From early boyhood he displayed a natural taste for scientific pursuits, and made ornithology a life-long study.

He received his early training at Wesley College, Auckland, and on leaving school entered the banking profession in that city. There he won rapid promotion, but finding that his health would not stand the strain, and acting on medical advice, he took a year's rest at Wellington, devoting himself during that period principally to literary and scientific pursuits. During this time of enforced leisure he enjoyed the friendship of the late William Swainson, a celebrated ornithologist of his day, whose extensive collections in natural history, and valuable stores of information, were always at the command of his willing disciple.

He was appointed Native Commissioner in 1859 for the Southern Provinces, and during his location in Christchurch undertook and carried through to a most successful issue the experimental partition and individualisation of the Kaiapoi Reserve.

In 1861 he gained the first prize for an essay on "The Moral Welfare of New Zealand," offered by the Auckland Association, and open to the competition of all colonists under the age of twenty-six.

In the same year, by the desire of Governor Browne, he acted as honorary secretary of the Kohimarama conference of Native chiefs, and prepared the proceedings for publication.

Early in 1862 he was appointed Resident Magistrate in the Manawatu District.

In 1865 he was gazetted a Judge of the Native Land Court, and during that disturbed period he performed many special services in connection with Native affairs, for which he received on eight different occasions the official thanks of the Government.

As a volunteer on Sir George Grey's staff at the taking of the Weraroa Pa he received the New Zealand War Medal. On that occasion, declining the protection of a military escort, he carried the Governor's despatches, at night, through forty miles of the enemy's country, attended only by a Maori orderly—a piece of work which was mentioned in despatches as "an act of conspicuous personal courage, and a service which, in the Imperial Army, would have been rewarded by some special mark of distinction."