THE AUSTRALIAN REGION 45 



four genera, of which sixteen, or nearly half, are not known 

 elsewhere. There are also five peculiar genera of waders and 

 aquatic birds in New Zealand, making twenty-one indigenous 

 genera in all. Among its few reptiles, also, New Zealand 

 numbers the very remarkable Tuatera (Sphenodon punc- 

 tatus), which, though externally resembling a lizard, differs 

 from all other lacertians in so many points of its skeleton 

 and internal structure that it is usually considered to 

 belong to a separate and distinct order of reptiles. The 

 nearest allies of this form are found among three extinct 

 families which make up the order Rhynchocephalia. Re- 

 mains of these families occur in beds of Permian age in 

 Germany, in the Keuper of Elgin (Scotland), and in the 

 (probably contemporaneous) Gondwana beds of India, as 

 likewise in the lower Eocenes of North America and 

 Northern Europe. 



All these facts indicate a great amount of individualism 

 in the Maorian Sub-region. But on the whole they betray 

 an affinity to the tropical parts of Australia and to the 

 Papuan Sub-region rather than to the temperate portion 

 of Australia, to which New Zealand is now nearest in point 

 of actual distance. This connection is further confirmed 

 by the soundings of the seas round the islands, which show 

 that, although on the west, south, and east deep water 

 extends all round, a long submerged bank, with a depth of 

 less than 1000 fathoms, stretches along to the north-west, 

 and connects the shallow waters round Australia with 

 those round New Zealand. 



It is probable that the land connection between the 

 two areas, if it ever actually existed, took place somewhere 

 along this line. 



As already mentioned in the first chapter of this volume, 



