612 ZOOLOGY SECT. 



which are flightless ; the exclusive possession of more than half 

 the known genera, and of a large majority of the species of Ratitae, 

 and of the entire order Rhynchocephalia ; the total absence of 

 Ophidia, Chelonia, and Crocodilia ; the paucity of Lacertilia and 

 the almost total absence of Amphibia ; all these faunal characters 

 combine to make New Zealand one of the best marked and most 

 peculiar tracts on the earth's surface. 



One or two facts must be mentioned with regard to the smaller 

 islands of the region. In Norfolk Island there existed until 

 recently a flightless Rail, Notornis alba, belonging to a genus the 

 only other species of which lives or lived in New Zealand. In 

 Phillip Island, close to Norfolk Island, Nestor productus formerly 

 occurred, a member of an endemic New Zealand family of Parrots. 

 In Lord Howe Island there is a species of the endemic New 

 Zealand flightless Rail Ocydromus. These three facts all point to 

 a former partial or complete land connection between New Zealand 

 and the islands in question. The remaining islands are closely 

 related to New Zealand, but with greatly impoverished faunae. 

 In Macquarie Island, the southernmost land outside the Antarctic 

 circle, there has recently been discovered an Earthworm with 

 distinct South American affinities. 



The Polynesian Region embraces the numerous groups of 

 islands lying within the tropics to the east and north of the 

 Austro-Malayan Islands. The most important groups are New 

 Caledonia, the New Hebrides, Fiji, the Friendly Islands, Samoa, 

 the Society Islands, and the Sandwich Islands. They are all 

 typical oceanic islands, that is, they are of volcanic origin, have no 

 stratified rocks, and show no indication of former connection with 

 any continental area. 



In correspondence with their isolated position, the faunae of 

 these islands, although exhibiting great variety from one group to 

 another, all agree in the absence of Land Mammals, except Bats, 

 and with one or two exceptions of Amphibians, in the small 

 total number of species, and in the very large proportion of endemic 

 species. The islands have evidently been peopled by waifs and 

 strays from other lands, at periods so remote that most of the 

 immigrants have assumed the character of distinct species, or even, 

 especially in the isolated Sandwich Islands, of distinct genera. 



On the whole, the affinities of the Polynesian fauna are dis- 

 tinctly Australian ; they present, however, certain American char- 

 acteristics, especially in the occurrence of Lizards, belonging to the 

 American family of the Iguanidae, in Fiji. Amongst the most 

 notable endemic forms are the Dodo-like Pigeon, Didunculus, in 

 Samoa ; the Kagu (RTiinochetus), a remarkable genus of Grallae, in 

 New Caledonia, and the Drepanida, a family of Passerines allied 

 to the American Greenlets, in the Sandwich Islands. Polynesia 



