president's address — SECTION D. 121 



along the east and partly along the west side of the dividing 

 range. In the south-east part of the continent and in the 

 central region barriers to migration were present. The first 

 of these consisted of Bass Straits across which there could 

 'have been only a gradually disappearing and almost lost land 

 connection with Tasmania. The second series consisted 

 possibly in a desert region to the north of the central part 

 and a great lacustrine region in the south, together with a 

 submergence beneath the sea of much that is now dry land 

 along the present coast line. These various barriers made 

 communication with Tasmania and South and West Australia 

 comparatively difficult, and hence it is that the former is so 

 remarkably poor in diprotodonts whilst the two latter are 

 also relatively poor though their isolation has not been so 

 complete as that of Tasmania. 



Relationship to New Zealand. — There remains to be con- 

 sidered finally the relationship between Australia and New 

 Zealand. This subject is one of extreme difficulty and has 

 been dealt with by Wallace in his " Island Life," and by 

 Hutton in his papers on " The Origin of the Fauna and 

 Flora of New Zealand," in the Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History for 1884 and 1885. Both of these authors 

 agree in supposing that an intermittent connection has existed 

 at some time by means of a greater extension of land in 

 Antarctic regions than is now found. Beyond this Wallace 

 accounts for the facts of distribution, as presented to us, by 

 means of an ancient land connection between New Zealand 

 and the north-eastern part of the old Australian continent, 

 and Hutton by means of the former existence of a South 

 Pacific continent, with which was connected a large land 

 mass extending from East Australia to India, and with New 

 Zealand as a southern offshoot. Further, Professor Hutton 

 states that the South Pacific continent must have existed 

 after the Jurassic and have been submerged before the 

 Eocene period. 



We may, to begin with, divide all those forms revealing 

 affinity between the faunas of Australia and New Zealand 

 into three main groups. (1) Those forms found widely dis- 

 tributed in AustraUa and occurring also in New Zealand. 

 (2) Those which are found in the south east of Australia, 

 including Tasmania (or more strongly developed here than 

 in the north east) and in New Zealand. (3) Those which 

 are found in the north east of Australia and not in the south 

 east (or most strongly developed in the former) and in New 



