With the exception of the Brothers, which is a “Rock” station, manned by men only, large and comfortable houses are provided for lightkeepers and their families. Many children among the families employed are reared on the stations, the number in 1965 being 79. In many cases their schooling must be by correspondence and radio. On all stations it is possible to carry a small number of livestock for fresh milk and meat, thus making them largely self contained, particularly where vegetables can also be grown. In general, the families live on station for 11 months of the year, baking their own bread, varying their diet with fresh fish which are often plentiful, and making their own amusements with a great variety of hobbies. They have one month's annual leave. District nurses visit the stations to give inoculations to children and advise on their health, and medical advice by radio is available even at the most remote island.

Duties consist of the maintenance of diesel-electric equipment, the cleaning and polishing of lenses and lantern panes, the normal maintenance and painting of houses and buildings, paths, fences and roads, and the care of livestock and gardens. On store days there is the working of cranes to unload the servicing boat, and of tramways which in certain cases haul up the stores, mail, and drums of diesel oil to the top of cliffs.

Weather reports are coded and dispatched by radio-telephone or land line at frequent intervals, sometimes continuing overnight.

Of the 25 manned coastal lights, one, at Taiaroa Head, Otago Peninsula, is watched by the Otago Harbour Board signalmen on behalf of the Marine Department. Of the remainder, 15 have a reasonable land access by road or along the beach at low water, and have a weekly or fortnightly stores and mail trip by truck. The remaining 10 with sea access are serviced fortnightly, except the most remote and isolated station at Puysegur Point on the south-western tip of the relatively unexplored area of Fiordland National Park. The station is visited by an amphibian aircraft every three weeks if weather conditions are suitable. Even this represents a great improvement over the pre-war days when a Government steamer would visit a station only once every three months.

The organisation of the technical maintenance both of manned and automatic lights is centred at Wellington, with depots at Auckland, Picton, and Bluff. The New Zealand Light Service is unusual in that all manned lights are electrified, where possible from the national mains supply, and otherwise with diesel-electric generating plant. As this allows for the use of electric alarm bells which cover all types of failure, the system is preferable to that of watchkeepers, as required for kerosene incandescent lights used in many other countries. The automatic light beacons are equally divided between electric lights of mains or battery operation and acetylene gas lights. Where road access is possible, replenishment of batteries or gas bottles is carried out by truck and, in one remaining case, by pack horse. Those lights which are on inaccessible coasts or islands are maintained from the sea by Marine Department vessels in the Cook and Foveaux Straits, Auckland, and Marlborough Sounds areas.

The main harbours of New Zealand today are on the east coast of both islands, in consequence of which the majority of lights are located on these coasts, and in Cook and Foveaux Straits. Only small coastal vessels are to be found navigating between Wellington and minor ports on the West Coast.

Fog and low visibility are not frequent on the New Zealand coast which can thus be said to be well served by 13 radio beacons.

The rugged and windswept coastline of New Zealand's two main islands and of Stewart Island is over 4,000 miles in length and is lit by 25 manned and 66 unmanned automatic coastal lights, that is, not including harbour entrance and other harbour lights. As far back as the early fifties, when New Zealand had a dual system of government, a distinction was drawn between coastal and harbour lights, the former being established and maintained by the Central Government, and the latter by Provincial Governments. Today the Marine Department maintains the coastal lights, fog signals, and radio beacons, and various harbour boards maintain their own lights and fog signals.

The first light to be established in New Zealand was on Pencarrow Head at the entrance to Wellington's Harbour, Port Nicholson, on 1 January 1859. It is of interest to note that the first lightkeeper was a woman, Mrs M. J. Bennett, widow of the lightkeeper of a temporary beacon erected in 1852. The second light was not established until 1862, on the boulder bank at Nelson. Then, in 1865, due to the vigorous policy of J. M. Balfour, the Marine Engineer of the Central Government, and subsequently the first Secretary of the Marine Department when it was formed in 1877, lights were established at Tiritiri Matangi, Taiaroa Head, Mana Island, Godley Head, and Dog Island. All these lights are still in existence except that on Mana Island, which could possibly be confused with the Pencarrow light. This is believed to have caused the wrecks of City of Newcastle and Cyrus. It was therefore switched off in 1881 and subsequently carried in sections by the Government steamer Hinemoa and re-erected at Cape Egmont. This steel-built tower weighed 90 tons. By 1881 there were 21 lights established, and the story of their erection is one of rugged endurance and fine seamanship on the part of the crews of the Government steamers Luna, Stella, and Hinemoa in landing the materials over surf beaches and at rocky, isolated headlands. At the Brothers Islands, the landing of these stores took 60 days during which Stella was continuously under way except when loading at Wellington. At some stations teams of bullocks had first to be landed to haul the materials to the top of the cliffs. The name of the Marine Engineer, David Scott, must also be recorded as the one responsible for the work of erection of many of the more remote lights once the materials had been landed. His work has stood the test of time and, in spite of the gales and salt spray experienced in these exposed positions, the light towers are still in use and remain as monuments to his sound engineering skill.

The expectation of life at any age is the average remaining lifetime for persons of this age, assuming that mortality rates at each age continue at the current non-Maori level.

The expectation of life at various ages for the non-Maori and Maori populations is shown below. These expectations are taken from New Zealand Life Tables, 1955–57, prepared by the Department of Statistics.

Life expectancy at birth for a Maori male increased by 3·18 years in the interval 1950–52 to 1955–57, with that for females increasing by 2·80 years. This was a substantial increase in a short period and is evidence that, although Maori life expectancy is relatively low, it is improving at a fast rate. In this interval between the construction of the first and second sets of Maori life tables, the improvement was not, however, so spectacular at higher ages.

The expectation of life of Maoris is much shorter than that of the non-Maori population. A comparison at age 0 shows a life expectation which is 11·65 years longer for non-Maori males and 15·20 years longer for European females.

Improvement in non-Maori life expectancy since 1880, for both sexes, has been most striking for the younger ages, but has been relatively small for the advanced ages. Progress in medical science, coupled with improved social conditions, has resulted in substantial reductions in mortality among infants and children from infectious diseases; on the other hand, diseases of middle and old age are less amenable to control. The following table displays the life expectancy revealed by each life table compiled since 1880 for the three exact ages of 1, 20, and 60 years. The overall longer span of life enjoyed by females is evident.

Prior to the Second World War, the New Zealand non-Maori population was probably the longest lived of any national population group in the world. This pre-eminent position has not been maintained, however, although New Zealand still takes a very high place in the international ranking list. The table below compares the life expectancy at birth for the non-Maori population with that for selected overseas countries. In all cases the expectancies are the most recent available.

*Non-Maori population.

†White population.

by John Victor Tuwhakahewa Baker, M.A., M.COM., D.P.A., Government Statistician, Wellington.

New Zealand lichens were first collected by botanists on Captain Cook's visits. The Forsters gathered specimens on Cook's second voyage in 1772, and Menzies collected lichens during Cook's third visit.

The first collection of any size was made by Dumont d'Urville and others during the voyage of the Astrolabe, 1826–29, and 26 specimens were described by A. Richard in his Essai d'une Flora de Nouvelle-Zélande, published in 1832. Drs Lyall and Hooker added greatly to the knowledge of New Zealand lichens with specimens collected during the voyage of the Erebus and Terror in 1840–41. Thirty-one species from the Auckland and Campbell Islands were named by Thomas Taylor and J. D. Hooker in Hooker's Botany of an Antarctic Voyage, of 1844.

The next major contribution was made by W. Colenso, whose specimens were described by the Rev. Churchill Babington, in Hooker's Flora Novae-Zelandiae of 1855. Dr W. Lauder Lindsay collected lichens in Otago in 1861 and in a paper read in 1886 mentioned about 100 species. By 1867 just over 200 species appeared in Hooker's Handbook of the New Zealand Flora.

Zahlbruckner's Lichenes Novae Zelandiae, published in 1941, is the most important publication of this century. Using the collections of H. H. Allan, L. M. Cranwell, L. B. Moore, J. Scott Thomson, J. E. Holloway, and K. W. Alison, Zahlbruckner described about 600 species. Papers by William Martin and J. Murray appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1958 and 1960.

Much remains to be done both in collecting and in identifying New Zealand lichens. Microscopic examination is usually necessary for the identification of species. As few type specimens are available in New Zealand, reference must be made to the collections at Kew, the British Museum of Natural History, and the Natural History Museum of Paris. Jeanne Hannington Goulding, Botanist's Assistant, Auckland Museum and William Martin, B.SC., Lichologist and School Teacher (retired), Dunedin.

by Jeanne Hannington Goulding, Botanist's Assistant, Auckland Museum, and William Martin, B.SC., Lichenologist and School Teacher (retired), Dunedin.

• Handbook of New Zealand Flora, Hooker, J. D. (1867)
• The Flora of New Zealand, Martin W. (1961)
• Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Vol. 85 (1958), Cladonia of New Zealand, Martin, W.
• Tuatara, Vol. 1 (1940), A Note on Lichens with a Key to the commoner New Zealand Genera, Allan, H. H.
• Ibid., Vol. 2 (1949), A Note on the Crustaceous Lichens of New Zealand, Allan, H. H.
• Ibid., Vol. 2 (1949), Key to the Stictaceae of New Zealand, Allan, H. H.
• New Zealand Lichens, Murray, J. (published by Biological Society of Victoria University of Wellington), (1964).

Some New Zealand lichens have useful chemical and dyeing properties. Sticta coronata, which is found mainly on forest trees and shrubs and sometimes measures more than a foot across – green with purplish patches, and yellow underneath – has yielded polyporic acid, which shows promising effects on leukaemia in mice. Dyes of a wide range of colours can be made from species of Sticta. Usnea, or “Old Man's Beard”, found hanging from old trees and fences, produces dyes in shades of brown and orange.

These form a thin crust on a substratum from which it is almost impossible to detach them. There are representatives of over 70 genera in New Zealand. The genus Lecidia has many species, also the genera Bacidia Arthonia, Buellia, Lecanora, Verrucaria, Rhizocarpon, and Lopadium are well represented here. Many indigenous species of Pyrenula are found on the trunks of forest trees.

These lichens have a branching thallus, some with bushy or erect appearance. There are 27 indigenous genera of which the largest is Cladonia, with 70 species. Cl. chlorphoea and Cl. pyxidata have erect podetia bearing brown apothecia, while on Cl. coccifera and Cl. deformis the apothecia are scarlet. There are three species of Cladia, the coral lichen, with masses of white or grey branches. The commonest is C. aggregata, found in all parts of this country.

Stereocaulon has nine indigenous species, both large and small, the most common being S. ramulosum and S. corticulatum, which frequently cover roadside banks. There are over 20 indigenous species of Usnea, some of which are bushy and erect while others are thread-like and pendulous, mainly grey-green or yellow in colour. The four species of Neuropogon found here are distinguished by black tips to the yellow or grey branching portions. The genus Sphaerophorus is represented here by five species, two with a flattened green thallus, while S. tener is a bushy lichen on forest trees, with black apothecia.