MACQUARIE ISLAND AND THE SNARES. 135 
Histiopteris incisa, and, on the barest ground, the Antipodes chick- 
weed (Stellaria decipiens var. angustata). 
Although Macquarie Island belongs to Tasmania, biology derides 
political boundaries, and emphatically declares the island in question to 
be three-fourths New Zealand and the rest Fuegian. This latter claim 
is specially emphasized by the immense cushions of Azorella Selago, the 
Fuegian rival of our vegetable-sheep, but a plant of the carrot family. 
Although the number of species is considerably less—at most 34 
—than that of any other subantarctic island except the Snares, the 
flat ground near the sea, the swamps, and the hillsides have, through 
the prevalence of Poa foliosa tussock, Stilbocarpa, and the silvery 
Pleurophyllum Hookeri, somewhat the same general appearance as 
that of the other islands. But at a height of some 300 feet the scene 
is changed—the wind has there the mastery. Here is the late Mr. A. 
Hamilton’s description of this “‘ wind-desert,” as it may be called :— 
“ At about 300 feet you gain a plateau so swept by the antarctic 
gales that vegetation is reduced to compact closely growing mosses, 
small uncinias, and the compact cushion-like masses of Azorella 
Selago. In the hollows of the uplands are countless little tarns or 
lakes, some of considerable extent. Round the tops of the hills the 
wind has cut out wonderful terraces from a few inches to a foot 
or two in height, with completely bare rock, much disintegrated at 
the top. In some of the more sheltered places or gullies stunted 
plants of Stilbocarpa and Pleurophyllum cover the ground.” 
Distant only 65 nautical miles from Stewart Island, the flora 
of the Snares is a connecting-link between that of Stewart Island 
and the flora of the other New Zealand subantarctic islands. It 
is an apology for a flora merely, the full number of its species of 
seed-plants and ferns being but 22. Still, two of these, both most 
striking plants—Amnisotome acutifolia and Stilbocarpa robusta—occur 
nowhere else in the world. Further, though there are only so few 
species, climate, soil, and penguins have sorted them out into the well- 
defined plant-formations—scrub-forest, tussock-grassland, and several 
coastal associations. 
On the Snares there are extensive colonies of the Victoria penguin 
(Catarractes pachyrhynchus), many hundreds being congregated into 
one place (fig. 87). Where a penguin colony has occupied the ground 
for some time it kills out every plant, and there is only an area of 
mud and filth encircled by a wall of tussocks. Ultimately the area 
