80 Capt. F. W. Hutton on the Origin of the 



communication between New Zealand and Patagonia has been 

 easier for marine Crustacea, freshwater fishes, and plants at 

 some former period than it is now ; and this could only have 

 been caused by some intermediate land having formerly 

 existed. 



This is quite in accordance with the opinion of Sir J. Hooker, 

 who thinks that possibly the " plants of the Southern Ocean 

 are the remains of a flora that had once spread over a larger 

 and more continuous tract of land than now exists in that 

 ocean, and that the peculiar antarctic genera and species may 

 be the vestiges of a flora characterized by the predominance of 

 plants which are now scattered throughout the southern 

 islands " *. And again, " The supposition that more land 

 formerly existed along the parallels between Fuegia and Ker- 

 guelen's Land, possibly in the form of islands, remains the 

 forlorn hope of the botanical geographer " f. Mr. Moseley 

 also considers more land to be necessary to account for the 

 almost identical floras of Kerguelen's Land, the Crozets, and 

 Marion Islands J ; and Mr. Wallace comes to the same con- 

 clusion in his ' Island Life.' 



As some doubt may still remain as to the necessity of sup- 

 posing a greater extension of land in former times, it will be 

 as well to compare the floras and faunas of New Zealand and 

 Tasmania. We know that the high lands of both these 

 places have never been submerged during the whole of the 

 Tertiary era, and that, although at present separated by about 

 900 miles of ocean, they have probably approached to about 

 600 miles. A comparison therefore of their floras and faunas 

 will furnish a very instructive example of the powers of dis^ 

 persion of plants and animals across the sea. 



Baron von Muller enumerates 948 species of Tasmanian 

 flowering plants, while the South Island of New Zealand has 

 688 species, and of these 103 are common to both, i. e. about 

 6| per cent, of the whole. According to Dr. Buller's l Manual ' 

 ( 1 880) 97 land birds have been recorded from New Zealand. 

 Of these 53 are perching birds and 44 are waders or rails. In 

 Tasmania, according to Mr. E. P. Ramsay (1877), there are 

 107 land birds, viz. 78 perchers and 29 waders or rails. Of 

 these only 6 perching birds § and 15 waders ai - e common to 

 both places. There have also been found in New Zealand 1 

 Australian perching bird (Eurt/stomus pacijicus) and 7 waders, 



* Flora Nov. Zeal., Intr. p. xxi (1853). 

 t Phil. Trans, vol. clxviii. p. 13 (1879). 

 \ Linn. Journ. xv. p. 485. 



§ Circus Gouldii, Hylochelidon nigricans, Graucalus parvirostrix, Zo.ste 

 reps ccerulescenSj Anthoc/uera caruncvlat-a } smdi Chaldtes plugvsus. 



