BY CHARLES HEDLEY. 395 



between zoologists. Meyer and Wigglesworth quote the opinions 

 of thirty-six writers upon it.* 



This, however, need not concern us here, and we may com- 

 mence on the westward our inquiries with New Guinea. The 

 use of political boundaries has much confused the lines of zoo- 

 geographical demarcation. " The Australian Region," meaning 

 the continent of Australia, together with the Islands of New 

 Guinea and the West Pacific, is an especially misleading term, 

 and has tended to obscure natural boundaries. Within Austra- 

 lasia are several regions, peopled by distinct and unrelated faunas. 

 To a zoologist, Australasia is not an entity, and may with 

 advantage be dismissed from his vocabulary. I am unable to 

 recognise New Zealand and other West Pacific Archipelagoes as 

 appanages of Australia.! 



It is first necessary to understand the faunal regions of Aus- 

 tralia. In 1894 I published a short sketch, showing that three 

 distinct faunal elements were included in this continent. | This 

 view was afterwards accepted and amplified by Spencer. § The 

 oldest of these three, named by Tate the Autochthonian and by 

 Spencer the Eyrean, has its chief seat in the extreme south-west, 

 but its influence is perceptible across the continent to the north- 



* Meyer and Wigglesworth — The Birds of Celebes, i., 1897. 



t The usual classification of New Zealand originated at a time when the 

 fauna was little known, and being uncontradicted has grown into general 

 acceptance without due examination. Swainson appears to have intro- 

 duced the idea by dividing (A Treatise on tlie Geography and Classification 

 of Animals, 1835, p. 117) "the Australian Province" into "three sub- 

 ordinate districts. The first may comprehend New Guinea and its adjacent 

 islands; the second, Australia properly so called, with Van Dieman's Land 

 and New Zealand; and the third, the numerous groups of smaller islands 

 clustered in the great Pacific Ocean." Sclater wrote more cautiously in 1857 

 (Journ. Linn. Soc. Zool. ii. p. 136), "I should be inclined for the present 

 not to separate New Zealand and the Pacific Islands generally from the 

 Australian division." 



J Hedley— Proc. Austr. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 1893 (1894), pp. 444-6. 



§ Spencer— Rep. Horn Sci. Exped. i. 1896, pp. 171-198. 



