CETACEA 1561 



a few rats. There were but few reptiles, or insects ; 

 fleas, scorpions, cockroaches, and other vermin have 

 since been introduced. 



The native fauna of New Zealand is hardly less 

 scanty than that of the smaller groups of the Pacific. 

 The largest animal found there by the first European 

 settlers was the pig, which is probably not indigenous, 

 though it has reverted to a state of nature. Dogs are 

 the only beasts of prey: a few rats and mice complete 

 the list of its Mammalia. There are no marsupials, 

 though New Zealand is nearer by many thousand 

 miles to Australia than to any of the other continents. 

 The feathered tribes are equally few in number, but 

 they include at least one species now fast approach- 

 ing extinction the apteryx (wingless bird), which 

 has no representative elsewhere. The moa, a bird 

 of the ostrich kind, appears to have become extinct 

 within the Nineteenth Century. 



CETACEA. PETER MARK ROGET 



REMARKABLE exemplifications of the law of 

 uniformity of organic structure are furnished 

 by the family of the Cetacea, which includes the 

 whale, the cachalot, the dolphin, and the porpoise, 

 and exhibits the most elementary forms of the type of 

 the Mammalia, of which they represent the early or 

 rudimental stage of development. Here, as before, 

 we have to seek these first elements among the in- 

 habitants of the water: for whenever, in our progress 

 through the animal kingdom, we enter upon a new 

 division, aquatic tribes are always found to compose 



