Instructions to Authors All papers offered for publication in the “Transactions” will be submitted for report and comment to referees whose identity will not be disclosed. An author who is a member of a Branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand may either (i) send his paper direct to the Editor, or (ii) send it to the Secretary of a Branch for reading at a meeting of that Branch, after which the Branch Secretary will forward it to the Editor. Authors who are not members of the Royal Society of New Zealand must have their papers communicated by a member, and such papers must be read before a meeting of one of the Branches. If the paper or any part of it has been published previously this must be clearly indicated on the manuscript. Manuscripts should, preferably, be in the English language, cleanly typewritten, double spaced, and on one side only of the paper, which should, preferably, be quarto size. Pages should be consecutively numbered. Inserts should be gummed on to the proper page and the point of insertion clearly indicated. Each paper must include an abstract placed at the beginning and giving a brief account of the research, its results and conclusions, any important innovations, but not the actual names of any new species, new genera nor new names in important nomenclatural changes. The title must be kept as short as possible consistent with indicating clearly the nature of the contents of the paper. Only the author's name and the name of the institution, if any, where the research was carried out should be included in the heading to the paper. The author's name together with relevant degrees and letters, if desired, and full postal address must be inserted at the conclusion of the paper. The position of text figures, tables, graphs or maps should be clearly indicated on the manuscript. Systematic papers in Botany or Zoology should conform with the International Code of Botanical or Zoological nomenclature respectively, and with the published opinions of the respective International Commissions. Only Illustrations essential to its elucidation should be included with a paper. These may be in the form of line drawings, wash drawings, photographs, tables and graphs. Coloured illustrations will be considered only in exceptional circumstances. Owing to the high cost of process engraving, illustrations should, preferably, be in the form of line drawings cleanly executed in black India ink on white bristol board, drawing paper, scraper board, or tracing cloth. These drawings may be shaded when necessary by stippling or cross hatching, and they will be inserted as text-figures. When a number of drawings are included these should be grouped together and firmly fixed down onto cardboard sheets cut in sizes that will reduce to the page width of five inches with a maximum depth of seven inches. In the case of small individual drawings, maps, graphs and tables, the originals should be drawn to a size that will reduce to a width of five inches or two and a-half inches with a maximum depth of seven inches. Tabular matter should be kept down to a minimum, and whenever possible tables should be drawn in black India ink or typed with a good black clear type so that they may be reproduced by the process engraver. In preparing graphs co-ordinate paper with lines in light blue (which do not reproduce in the subsequent block) may be used but co-ordinates required to appear in the finished graph must be drawn in India ink. Wash drawings and photographs should be of the highest quality. They will be printed by the half-tone process and inserted as plates. They cannot be inserted as text-figures. Photographs should be printed on glossy paper and should portray essential information clearly; all extraneous matter should be trimmed away. All plates and composite text-figures should be submitted fully assembled, clearly numbered and lettered as required, in black India ink, or if necessary, in white Chinese ink. Space on plates is very costly and waste of this space must be avoided in assembling plates and composite figures. Original plates should be larger than, and in proportion to, the page size of seven inches by five inches, so that they reduce without waste of page space. Legends to all figures and plates should be included on a separate sheet or sheets with the manuscript. Each figure or plate must have clearly marked on the back the author's name and the title of the paper to which it belongs. Footnotes should be used sparingly, and not at all for citing references. All measurements should normally be given in the metric system. When numbers are included in the text, figures should always be used for 10 and any number above 10; below 10 and for fractions, use figures whenever possible in preference to spelling out. Notations such as “l.c.”, “op. cit.” and “ibid.” should be avoided. All references cited should be listed alphabetically by author at the end of the paper. Where more than one entry occurs for the same author these should be listed chronologically. The title of the paper should be included and the name of the periodical or, if a book, the title of the book, should be underlined, in the MS so that the printer will set it in italics, e.g.: Marwick, J., 1926. New Tertiary Mollusca from North Taranaki, Trans. N.Z. Inst., 56 pp. 317–331. —— 1931. The Tertiary Mollusca of the Gisborne District N.Z. Geol. Surv. Bull., 13. In the text sources of references should be referred to by author, date and page, e.g., (Marwick, 1926: 326). In systematic papers all generic, specific and sub-specific names must be underlined in the manuscript. Family names and names of higher categories are not underlined but are spelt with an initial capital letter. Synonyms should be arranged with the date cited first. The original manuscript only should be forwarded to the Editor. An author should retain a carbon copy until the article appears in print. Although every care will be taken, the Editor cannot accept liability or be held responsible for loss of manuscripts. Manuscripts illegibly typed, carelessly corrected or not conforming to the above instructions, or which include plates and figures that have not been properly assembled, will be returned to authors and will not be considered for publication until brought into conformity with the instructions set out above. As manuscripts forwarded for publication in the “Transactions” should be in a form ready for despatch to the printer, proofs are sent to authors for the correction of printers' errors only. Where an author makes additions or alterations to his proofs which the Editor considers excessive, the author may be required to pay for them. Neither the Editor, nor the Associate Editors, can be held responsible for the opinions expressed by authors.