TASMANIA 161 



TASMANIAN AND NEW ZEALAND 



WATERS 

 (Plate 2, Fig. 54; Plate 3, Figs. 93, 98) 



Tasmania and New Zealand are parts of the 

 Australian Region, though the land birds are so 

 very different as to make one wonder however they 

 could be placed in the one and same region. Even 

 the water birds are subject to more and greater 

 geographical differences than in Tasmania which 

 has only two minor associated groups of islands. 

 New Zealand has the sub-antarctic groups of 

 islands far removed from each other. It also has 

 two groups of Polynesian outliers which give two 

 large and quite different assemblages of birds. 



Both Tasmania and New Zealand originally got 

 their land birds from the Papuan sub-region; the 

 first as a matter of a few thousand years ago, the 

 second, one of hundreds of thousands. 



Map 68 shows a connecting species, the Diving 

 Petrel. It is a feeble flier but like the penguins it 

 can keep to the sea for weeks at a time. It has in 

 fact become a short-legged, highly specialised form 

 of diving bird. The Silver and Pacific Gulls are 

 shown at b. 



The Crested Penguin is common to both ; while 

 the islands of New Zealand are rich in penguins, 

 having no less than eight species. Tasmania, as 

 a dependency with no national far flung appen- 

 dages, has only two species, one being the smallest 

 known. 



