Fauna and Flora of New Zealand. 101 



spread northward. It is true that there are also antarctic 

 species in New Zealand which are not found in the southern 

 islands ; but this is only what we should expect, when we 

 consider the relative size of the places, and reflect that these 

 islands are merely the remains of a more extensive land. 

 But granting that these plants came to New Zealand from 

 the south, did they spread from South America to the east or 

 to the west ? Mr. Wallace says that the route by which 

 the Fuegian plants may have reached New Zealand is " easily 

 marked off." It is by South Shetland Islands, Graham's 

 Island, the Antarctic Continent to Victoria Land, thence to 

 Adelie Island, Young Island, and Macquarie Island * — thus 

 passing from Graham's Land in a westerly direction at the 

 high latitude of more than 70° S. to Victoria Land, along a 

 coast where no vegetation now exists. He gives, however, 

 no reasons for adopting this route, and it does not seem to be 

 quite consistent with his previously expressed opinion of a 

 " long-persistent more or less glaciated condition " of the 

 southern hemisphere. On the other hand, Sir J. Hooker 

 points out that there are five groups of islands between Fuegia 

 and Kerguelen Land, then none to Macquarie and Campbell 

 Islands, and none across the whole Pacific Ocean from Camp- 

 bell Island to Fuegia. He says that " Tierra del Fuego and 

 the neighbouring southern extremity of the American conti- 

 nent appear to be the region of whose botanical peculiarities 

 all the other antarctic islands, except those in the vicinity of 

 New Zealand, more or less evidently partake. It presents a 

 flora characterizing isolated groups of islands extending 5000 

 miles to the eastward of its own position. Some of these 

 detached spots are much closer to the African and Australian 

 continents, whose vegetation they do not assume, than to the 

 American, and they are all situated in latitudes and under 

 circumstances eminently unfavourable to the migration of 

 species, save that their position relatively to Fuegia is in the 

 same direction as that of the violent and prevailing westerly 

 winds "f. But in a footnote he says that too much stress 

 has been laid upon winds in spreading plants, pointing out 

 that both in the Pacific and in the North Atlantic plants have 

 spread against the prevailing wind. 



Of the form of the basin of the Southern Ocean we know 

 very little ; but it appears to be shallow, getting deeper to- 

 wards the north. The 2000-fathom line passes close to Cape 



* ' Island Life,' p. 489. 



t 'Flora Antarctica,' ii. p. 211. 



