Cockayne. — Botanical Excursion to Southern Islands. 313 



is regarding former extension of New Zealand, and while on 

 this topic the question of former antarctic land-areas occupied 

 by plants may be briefly discussed. To approach this ditticult 

 question we must turn to the geological history of New Zea- 

 land. Captain Hutton's most recent utterance on the sub- 

 ject may be taken as summing up what is believed to be 

 known on this head Here there is no need to go into 

 Hutton's arguments; only some of his conclusions need 

 be stated: "In the middle of the Jurassic period came a 

 violent upheaval." "The new land, which we may now call 

 New Zealand, for it has never since been entirely covered by 

 the sea, extended in a westerly direction to at least twice its 

 present breadth, and to the north it joined New Caledonia 

 and New Guinea, which at that time probably formed part of 

 a South Pacific continent.''' Plants and animals — including 

 snails, worms, and nisects, but no birds — came trooping down 

 from the north to form the basis of our flora and fauna." 

 " In the Upper Cretaceous the land subsided, and New 

 Zealand was reduced to comparatively small limits." " A 

 little before the commencement of the Tertiary era the rocks 

 were folded once more, the land rose again, and again it 

 stretched far away to the north, but was not again united to 

 New Guinea or to northern x\ustralia. A second invasion 

 from the north followed, and quantities of plants of all de- 

 scriptions, accompanied by animals — among which were many 

 land-birds — migrated to New Zealand, and it is the descend- 

 ants of this Eocene invasion which form the greater part of 

 the present fauna and flora." " In the older Pliocene came 

 the last great upheaval. All the islands were joined together, 

 and the land stretched away to the east and south so as to in- 

 clude the Chatham and Auckland Islands, as well, perhaps, as 

 Campbell and Macquarie Islands, while to the north it cer- 

 tainly extended to the Kermadecs and much further. Pro- 

 bably at this time more land existed in the Antarctic Ocean, 

 for New Zealand added to its flora and fauna many antarctic 

 plants and marine animals. But this land could not have 

 connected New Zealand with either Patagonia or South 

 Africa, for if it had done so we should certainly have had 

 more immigrants, includmg land-birds and probably mammals" 

 (52, pp. 181, 182). 



Wallace, although far from agreeing with Hutton in all 

 his conclusions, also believes in a much greater extension 

 of New Zealand, and seeks to show how the basis of its flora 

 came from Australia (102, p. 506) during a period — probably 



* The recent discovery of species of Corynocarinis , supposed to be 

 endemic in New Zealaiid, in New Caledonia and New Hebrides is of 

 great interest in this connection (43«). 



