58 THE NOTOG^EIC REALM. [CHAP. 



The case of the ratite, or flightless struthious birds of Notogaea, 

 as represented by the extinct moas (Dinornithidcz) and the living 

 kiwis (Apterygidce) of New Zealand, and the cassowaries and 

 emeus (Casuariidcz) of Papua and Australia, seems to confirm the 

 conclusions drawn from the evidence of the marsupials as to the 

 isolation of the Notogseic realm not being so ancient as supposed 

 by Dr Wallace. It is to be presumed that all will agree that 

 more or less complete land-connections must have been necessary 

 for the migration of these birds ; and if it can be shown that the 

 group is a comparatively modern one, it cannot but support the 

 marsupial evidence. Before proceeding to do so, allusion must, 

 however, be made to the views of other writers as to the relation- 

 ships of the different Notogeeic lands. 



In Island Life 1 , Dr Wallace considers that during the 

 Cretaceous, and probably also for a considerable portion of 

 Tertiary times, Western Australia was cut off by a deep sea from 

 the eastern margin of the continent, which was united with Tas- 

 mania, and possibly also with New Guinea. The eastern and 

 western islands, he writes, " would then differ considerably in 

 their vegetation and animal life. The western and more ancient 

 land already possessed, in its main features, the peculiar Australian 

 flora, and also the ancestral forms of its strange marsupial fauna, 

 both of which it had probably received at some earlier epoch by 

 a temporary union with the Asiatic continent over what is now 

 the Java Sea. Eastern Australia, on the other hand, possessed 

 only the rudiments of its existing mixed flora derived from three 



distinct sources The Marsupial fauna had not yet reached the 



eastern land, which was, however, occupied in the north by some 

 ancestral struthious birds, which had entered it by way of New 

 Guinea through some very ancient continental extension, and of 

 which the emeu, the cassowaries, the extinct Dromor?iis of Queens- 

 land, and the moas and kiwis of New Zealand, are the modified 

 descendants." He further concludes that a large area of what is 

 now the Tasman Sea was upheaved, and nearly, or quite, con- 

 nected New Zealand with Australia, whereby the fauna and flora 

 then existing in Eastern Australia were enabled to colonise New 



1 Pages 465 et seq. 



