158 Permanence and Evolution. 



remarkable group of Dinornis. Now how was 

 it easier for these struthious birds to be trans- 

 ported than for mammals ? Did they come 

 over with wings and then lose them through 

 disuse ? But winglessness is characteristic of 

 the whole struthious order. But New Zealand 

 is not properly an oceanic island. It was 

 recently connected with Australia. Then why 

 has it no native mammal instead of being full 

 of marsupials ? 



Since the time when Darwin wrote that 

 Batrachia were never found on oceanic 

 islands, tree frogs have been identified in 

 the Fiji group (vide Wallace, " Geographical 

 Distribution," vol. i. p. 449). The same may be 

 said of the land tortoises of Galapagos. But 

 the most instructive instance in this respect, 

 perhaps, is that of the West Indies. There we 

 have a marked insular fauna, almost no 

 mammals that are indigenous (although cattle 

 and goats have flourished and become feral 



