398 A ZOOGBOGRAPHIC SCHEME FOR THE MID-PACIFIC, 



Guinea. Here we find numerous palms and cycads, with ferns 

 whose trunks form stately columns. The forests are composed of 

 tall trees such as the Gatip, of long arborescent lianas and of 

 numerous forms of leguminous plants. Here the food trees of 

 Pacific islanders, such as the breadfruit, the spondias plum, and 

 the banana, are indigenous. Following this superb vegetation, 

 we see it diminish in proportion as we advance towards Torres 

 Straits. Only a certain number cross into Australia, of which 

 some characteristic members are the Indian Erythrina, two 

 bananas, the Flagellaria indica, &c. But if instead of turning 

 from New Guinea at Torres Straits, we follow the chain of islands 

 leading to Polynesia, namely, New Britain and New Ireland, we 

 find this vegetation still in full development, and the areca palm, 

 the sago palm, the tree-ferns and the Drymirhiza still inhabit the 

 forest. The neighbourhood of Port Praslin in New Ireland is 

 clad with Pandanits, Baringtonia, C alophylluiin and Casuarina 

 indica. But in proportion as we advance southward to the New 

 Hebrides and New Caledonia, the Indian vegetation decreases. 

 Still further south, the temperate zone brings a change of climate. 

 Norfolk Island produces an Araucaria, like that on the East 

 Australian coast, and the Phormium which is common to New 

 Zealand and peculiar to these islands. New Zealand, though not 

 very distant from Australia, in no respect shares the productions 

 of that vast country, but one still remarks, and this is worthy of 

 attention, the Indian genera of plants such as the olive, the 

 pepper and a reniform fern which recurs at Mauritius." 



A centre of distribution has been described for New Guinea; 

 another such occurs in New Zealand. 



It is now generally admitted that a former southern prolonga- 

 tion connected that Archipelago with the Antarctic Continent. 

 Thence were derived a fauna and flora akin to that now inhabit- 

 ing South America, of which the New Zealand Fuchsia is a well 

 known and typical example. Among moUusca, we point to the 

 Rhytididse and Placostylus. Along the tortuous route by which 

 the Malayan forms crept south to New Zealand from New Guinea, 



