GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 315 



evidence which is from one point of view so evidently deficient may 

 not be supplied by enquiry into existing Avifaunse, and this signifies 

 that a knowledge of the Geogi'aphical Distribution of living or recently 

 extinct Birds becomes a matter of prime importance to every one 

 who would exercise intelligently the calling of an Ornithologist. 



Of the six Regions above adopted it seems fitting to begin with 

 that in the Fauna of which Birds play the principal part, since of 

 indigenous terrestrial Mammals it has none,^ and that Class is 

 represented only by Bats or Seals. 



I. The New- Zealand Region presents, in Mr. Wallace's words 

 {Island Life, p. 442), " the most remarkable and interesting of insular 

 Faunas," and leads to the inference that this portion of the globe 

 shews a longer period of isolation than any other of equal magni- 

 tude — an isolation possibly anterior to the time when terrestrial 

 INIammals first appeared, or at least appeared in any land which 

 could have been then connected with it. Beside the two large 

 islands and one of moderate size (Stewart".-;), known in the aggi'e- 

 gate as New Zealand, numerous satellites belong to the Region, as 

 Lord Howe's, Norfolk and Kermadoc Islands, Avith the Chatham, 

 Auckland, and Macquarrie groups, as well as Antipodes Island. It 

 possessed until recently two perfectly distinct Orders (or, as some 

 rank them, Families) of Batitx — the Immanes - (Moa) and Apteryges 

 (Kiwi), of which the latter still exists, while the former, noAv 

 extinct, contained, according to the latest revision by Mr. Lydekker 

 {Cat. Foss. B. Br. Miis. pp. 219-351), about a score of species that 

 may require 5 genera for their reception, and certainly exhibit no 

 inconsiderable modification of a tolerably uniform structure, while 

 some of their members reached a stature that may be almost called 

 colossal. Moreover, these two Orders seem to be absolutely peculiar 

 to the Region.^ 



Turning to the Carmaix, we have a very remarkable genus in 

 Ocydronius (Weka) which, Ralline as it is, afibrds in the loss of its 

 power of flight and corresponding structural modification e\adence 

 of considerable antiquity. The Limicolx present a quite unique 

 form in the highly specialized AnarhyncJms (Wrybill), and the 

 Anseres in Cnemiornis, a large flightless Goose, now extinct and 

 apparently allied to the Australian Ceeeopsis, while the Accipitres 

 shew Harpagornis, a bird half as big again as an Eagle, and stout 

 enough to make Moas its prey — indeed it possibly owes its ex- 

 tinction to their disappeai^ance, finding no fit quarry when they and 

 Cnemiornis were gone. Sceloglaux is a very peculiar genus of Striges 



^ See above (p. 224, note 1 ). 



" Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, xx. p. 400. 



" Positive assertion to this effect cannot be made, since a portion of a fossil 

 femur from Queensland, said to appear indistinguishable from Dinornis, has been 

 described and figured {Proc. R. Soc. Qucensl. i. p. 27, pis. iii. iv.) 



