HISTORICAL RECORD n 



Australia and New Zealand, and others passing up the east coast 

 of Australia at the time, reported dense smoke-clouds from Gippsland 

 and North-west Victoria, and also the falling of considerable quantities 

 of ash and charred vegetable matter. The westerly winds drove the 

 smoke right across the Tasman Sea, and at a distance of about 1200 

 miles it still exerted such an influence on the upper atmosphere as 

 to make the whole sky lurid for a period of three or four hours. 

 A wind which could carry such a body of smoke such a distance could 

 probably easily transport seeds and spores, and though the usual 

 course of the wind-currents is not so directly from west to east, 

 yet such high winds apparently do occur, and that not unfrequently. 



Another agency by which seeds are carried to oceanic islands is 

 by means of birds, which bear them attached to their feet or plumage, 

 and in some cases carry them in their crops. Darwin, Wallace and 

 others have given numerous instances of this fact in plant distribution 1 . 

 Apart from regular migrants which come to New Zealand every year 

 from Australia, Polynesia and the Northern Hemisphere, a con- 

 siderable number of stragglers are blown or stray over from Australia 

 each year. The wonder, therefore, is not that Australian species of 

 plants are met with in considerable numbers in New Zealand, but 

 rather that they are not more common than is found to be the case. 



As far as all truly indigenous species of animals and plants are 

 concerned it is quite impossible to give dates for any which may have 

 been introduced in long past ages, as for example those which are 

 common, say, to New Zealand and Australia. But when we come 

 down to recent times and reach the period of human immigration, 

 it becomes possible to give some approximation to definite dates. 



According to Maori tradition, New Zealand was discovered by 

 two Polynesian voyagers named Kupe and Ngahue, but authorities 

 are not yet agreed as to the period of this discovery. 



The first Polynesian settlement in the time of Toi took place 30 

 to 32 generations, that is approximately 800 years, ago. On the 

 arrival of these immigrants, they found the east coast, north and 

 Taranaki districts occupied by the Mouriuri, Moriori or Maruiwi 

 folk in considerable numbers, descendants of crews of three drift 

 canoes, which had apparently come from the north-west. Whether 

 these people had brought any animals or plants with them it is now 

 impossible to say. According to east coast traditions, the Toi tribes 

 had the Hue Gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris) in cultivation at an early 



1 Darwin in a letter to Dr J. D. Hooker in January, 1860, says: "Birds do not 

 migrate from Australia to New Zealand," a curious error for such a good observer 

 to make, and showing the danger of generalising from imperfect data. Many 

 species regularly cross, notably the Shining Cuckoo and the Dotterel. 



