298 Transactions . — Botany. 



affect the plant covering. From the writings of Kirk and 

 Chapman, especially from the latter, something may be learned 

 as to their effect on the vegetation of the Snares. Thus. Kirk 

 writes (56, p. 214), " The island is the abode of numberless 

 penguins, petrels, and other sea-birds, and exhibits numerous 

 mdications of their influence on the vegetation." "Two or 

 three swamp-plants exist under ditKculties, being constantly 

 flattened under the broad feet of these birds" [penguins], 

 " which abound everywhere." Chapman writes (16, p. 495), 

 " Wherever a rookery is formed the timber or scrub dies, and 

 we often found places where the penguins had taken up new 

 ground, killing a piece of scrub alongside a rookery." The 

 above quotation shows very plainly how great an effect the pen- 

 guins can have on the plant covering. On the Bounty Islands, 

 where the penguins stand close together in millions, there is no 

 vegetation of any kind, excepting a fresh-water alga which 

 grows upon the rocks. Captain Bollons tells me that they 

 also occupy the cliffs of Antipodes Island in countless numbers, 

 and that small rookeries, where the birds are much scattered, 

 are found at the edge of the forest of the Auckland Group or 

 near the scrub on Campbell Island. The nmtton-bird makes 

 holes in the ground, where it rears its young, and such holes 

 must assist very materially in draining the land, while at the 

 same time there will be a good deal of manure on both its 

 surface and in the holes. Chapman describes the whole of 

 the ground of the chief island of the Snares Group as being 

 honeycombed witii mutton-bird holes: "The traveller con- 

 stantly breaks the surface and drops into these tunnels, but 

 the depth is not great." Where the giant petrels {Ossifraga 

 gigantca) congregate on Antipodes Island the ground becomes 

 more or less bare, and a quite different association of plants 

 occurs there to what occupies the unmanured slope. As was 

 mentioned in dealing with Antipodes Island, it is here alone 

 that the endemic Senecio antiyoda, a species differing much from 

 any other New Zealand one, occurs, and I suggested that the 

 rich soil caused by the bii'ds' manui'e had played an important 

 part in its evolution. '' 



Various species of albatros breed on the different Southern 

 Islands, and in some parts are extremely numerous. I had 

 an opportunity on both Campbell and Antipodes Islands of 

 seeing the young birds on the nest, and on the latter island 

 was enabled to take some notes as to what plants take pos- 

 session of the ground wliich gets laid bare round the nests. 



* Moseley shows (79) how a sort of mutual-benefit alliance has sprung 

 up between the penguins and the tussock on Tristan d'Acunba — how the 

 manure benefits the grass and the shelter of the gniss the birds. I sus- 

 pect something of the same with the Poa foliosa zone of the Southern 

 Islands. 



