246 



NA TURE 



[January 



1 1, 



coo 



meteorological, geological, geographical and anthropo- 

 logical observations, as well as others dealing with 

 ancient marks, boundaries and buildings, customs and 

 trades. 



The journal is an excellent example of all that the organ 

 of a field club and county natural history society should 

 be. It fulfils a double function, recording interesting 

 observations which would otherwise have been forgotten, 

 and stimulating its members to make fresh efforts in 

 their own districts. Throughout every county oppor- 

 tunities for observation are continually occurring, oppor- 

 tunities which are often wasted for want of an alert local 

 naturalist. A fresh cutting made on a railway, a new 

 gravel pit opened, an old house pulled down, afford the 

 chance of interesting and often valuable observations 

 when the keen and trained observer is on the spot. The 

 encouragement of such work is of no less importance 

 for the progress of science than the comprehensive papers 

 by acknowledged leaders of their subject which appear in 

 the Essex Natiwalist. These would be published under 

 any circumstances, whereas the former are rescued from 

 the multitude of observations which might have been. 



The journal is exceedingly well printed, and is a model 

 of careful and successful editorship. E. B. P. 



Anleiitiiig stir Dars/elhinj£^ chemischer Prdpatate. Ein 

 Leitfaden fiir de7i praktischen Unterricht in der Anor- 

 ga7nschen Chemie. Von Prof. Dr. H. Erdmann. 

 Second edition. 92 pp. (Frankfort : H. Bechhold, 

 1899-) 

 The great educational value of a well-chosen set of 

 chemical preparations, as an adjunct to the usual ana- 

 lytical courses, is now generally admitted ; it has been, 

 however, usual to select the examples almost wholly 

 from the field of organic chemistry. To Prof. Erdmann 

 is due the credit of showing that a course of inorganic 

 preparations was not only feasible, but on account of 

 the greater variety of difficulties met with in many cases, 

 even preferable for educational purposes to a selection 

 wholly organic. In this second edition several additions 

 have been made to the original text, including the pre- 

 paration of ammonium perborate, dry aluminium chloride, 

 arsenious oxide, violet chromium sulphate and potassium 

 iodate. 



The instructions throughout are very practical, the 

 cost of the material having been borne in mind through- 

 out, many laboratory bye-products or residues being 

 utilised as the raw material for preparations. 



In the few instances where the methods given are not 

 the best available, the residues are worked up in other 

 preparations. The book as a whole fills a gap in chemical 

 literature. 



The Boyhood of a Naturalist. By Fred Smith, Pp. 



vi -F 227. (London : Blackie and Son, Ltd., 1900.) 

 This genial account of his boyhood by a naturalist, 

 writing under the pseudonym Fred Smith, will afford un- 

 limited interest to any youngster with a love for live 

 things. That Fred Smith did not shine in school, and 

 was only with difficulty made to play cricket fairly regu- 

 larly, rather adds to his winsomeness. Indirectly, the 

 book should prove useful in demonstrating the educa- 

 tional value of the study of nature at first-hand. Fred's 

 education was unmistakably of the kind which it is at 

 present fashionable to call " heuristic," and his progress 

 in his numerous researches is further evidence of the 

 possibility of a boy, though considered a dunce at school, 

 arriving at manhood educated in the better sense of the 

 term, since his faculties are properly trained and his per- 

 ceptions keenly alert. As a gift book for a child with a 

 natural proclivity for biological work the volume can be 

 thoroughly recommended ; it is both instructive and 

 amusing. 



NO. 1576, VOL. 61] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex~ 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No nottce is taken of anonymous communications.'] 



The New Zealand Zoological Region. 



In a paper on " The Geography of Mammals" (Geographical 

 fournal, vol. iii. p. 95, and vol. iv. p. 35, 1894), Mr. W. L. 

 Sclater divides the land surface of the earth into three great 

 divisions, Notogcea, Neogcea, and Arctogosa, and these are sub- 

 divided into six regions, the Australian region corresponding; 

 with the division Notogcea. It seems to me, however, that had 

 Mr. Sclater considered what is natural rather than what is con- 

 venient, he would have divided his Notogcea into two regions, 

 separating the New Zealand area from that of Australia, for 

 these two areas are essentially distinct from one another in all 

 their great fundamental zoological characteristics. According^ 

 to Mr. Sclater, Prof. Huxley and Prof. Newton make the 

 New Zealand area a primary zoological region (I have not 

 seen the "Dictionary of Birds" or Huxley's paper). Mr. 

 Sclater then says : " there is, no doubt, as has just been shown,, 

 a good deal to be said for this proposal ; but, on the other 

 hand, there are even more valid reasons for retaining New Zea- 

 land as a sub-region of the Australian region." Mr. Sclater 

 then states his " more valid regions," which are three in 

 number. The first is that as he is dealing with mammals only- 

 it would be absurd to give a small group of islands, which is^ 

 almost entirely without terrestrial mammals, the rank of a 

 primary region. Had Mr. Sclater therefore left the New 

 Zealand area out of his considerations altogether, as was wisely 

 done by Mr. P. L. Sclater in his lecture " The Geographical 

 Distribution of Mammals" (Manchester Science Lectures, No. 5,, 

 Sixth Series, 1874), I should have been entirely in accordance 

 with him, and there would have been no occasion for this paper. 



The second reason given is that of " practical convenience." 

 It seems to me, however, that convenience should only be a 

 secondary consideration, and that what is natural is far more 

 important. Mr. Sclater goes on to say that " other small: 

 insular areas might with some justice put forward nearly similat 

 claims." 



New Zealand, however, stands alone in its very remarkable 

 physical and biological conditions, and presents with those of 

 Australia the strongest contrasts rather than similarities. 



It i'^, however, to Mr. Sclater's third reason that I have more 

 especially to take exception. He says: "Although New Zea- 

 land possesses no indigenous terrestrial mammals, yet the fauna,, 

 such as it is, shows an unmistakable affinity of various degrees 

 to that of Australia, and more especially to the tropical parts of 

 that continent. It is, indeed, probable that the whole of the 

 fauna of New Zealand has been originally derived from that 

 source." 



There are no doubt affinities between the faunas of Australia 

 and New Zealand ; but when we consider that in Tertiary 

 times (probably Pliocene) the New Zealand land area extended 

 far to the north and west of its present limits, probably as far 

 as Lord Howe Island, and the facilities for the diffusion of 

 species from the one area to the other were immensely greater 

 than they are at present, the wonder is that these affinities are 

 so slight and insignificant. It has been usual to look for 

 similarities in the faunas, and to attach much importance to- 

 the occurrence of the same or representative species in both 

 areas, and the great and essential differences of the faunas as 

 a whole have been largely lost sight of or little understood. 



I would first remark that the presence in Australia of a rich 

 mammal fauna (rnarsupials and monotremes), and its total 

 absence from New Zealand, is certainly significant. But let 

 that pass, and, as Mr. Sclater has himself suggested, to deter- 

 mine the geographical affinities of New Zealand we must take 

 " the fauna such as it is," consisting of birds, reptiles and other 

 lower groups ; and when we do this we find that the result is 

 exactly opposite to what Mr. Sclater would lead us to expect. 



Prof. Newton has no doubt ably dealt with the affinities of 

 the New Zealand birds in his work, " Dictionary of Birds " ; I 

 need not therefore discuss them here, except to remark that one 

 of the most interesting and remarkable features of our bird fauna 

 is the fact that during recent times— at most a few hundred 

 years back — there existed in these lands numerous species of" 



