306 ANTARCTICA: A VANISHED AUSTRAL LAND. 



insects I liave mentioned are wood borers, living on soft or decaying 

 trees, in which also their larvse are developed, and necessarily reqnir- 

 ing for their growth and differentiation throughout the area of their 

 dispersal an extensive and wooded region — a genial Antarctic conti- 

 nent, not merely a series of far separated islands as stepping stones. 



Now if we turn to the plants of the Southern Hemisphere, and con- 

 fining our attention to those not or l)ut slightly ranging with the north 

 of the equator, we find they present the same i)roblems for solution as 

 the fauna oftered. Of the charming saxifrage family there are two 

 tribes [EscaUoniecc and Gunoniem) which are peculiarly restricted to the 

 south of the equator. They contain between them thirty-five genera, 

 of which two only cross that boundary; the remaining thirty-three 

 genera are distributed to New Caledonia, New Zealand, Australia (with 

 Tasmania), the Mascarene Islands, and South America areas, as we 

 have seen above in the case of the fauna, occupied by related forms, 

 though separated from each other by wide seas. Of the forty-nine 

 genera and nine hundred and fifty species of the Proteacccv, the whole, 

 with the infinitesimal exception of twenty-five species which pass to 

 the north of the line, are distributed across the same regions, with the 

 addition of South Africa. The genus Cryptocarya of the Fcrseaccw is 

 common to New Zealand, South Africa, and South America, while 

 among the genera of other families we find some occurring in Africa, 

 or Madagascar and Australia; some in Tasmania and South America 

 only; while others crop up in South Africa and Australia, or New 

 Zealand, or in New Zealand and South America only. During my 

 travels in the Eastern Archipelago I discovered growing wild in the 

 forests of Java a large colony of Fetrcea arhorea, an arboreal species of 

 the Verbenacew, which at the end of the last century (1792) was found 

 by Smith and Wiles, on the Providence expedition, in Timor also. This 

 genus was i)reviously supposed to be entirely confined to the South 

 American continent. And yet another near relative, Petrcca vitex, has 

 still more lately been obtained in the islands of Burn and Amboina. 



Now, as to the explanation of these instances of singularly discon- 

 nected distribution of so nmuy plants and animals, the highest authori- 

 ties are by no means agreed. Nor is it a question that can be finally 

 settled while our information on many points necessary to its solution is 

 so fragmentary. Year by year, however, new discoveries are mending 

 the imperfections of our records, while continued sifting of the evidence 

 already gathered is gradually eliminating what is unreliable and estab- 

 lishing more firndy that which is trustworthy. So far as his latest 

 opinions have been expressed, Mr. Wallace, our highest authority on 

 geographical distribution, holds that the presence of these numerous 

 genera and species of the same families or groups of plants and animals 

 in Australasia, in the Mascarene Islands, or in South Africa, and in 

 South America, can be sufficiently explained as the remnants of ancient 

 types once spread over the Northern Hemisphere, whose lands are prac- 



