OF CREATION. 343 



fill extremities enable the animal to run swiftly, and 

 when attacked to defend itself with great vigour. 

 The Apteryx is nocturnal in its habits, and dwells 

 in the deepest recesses of the forest, where gigantic 

 trees are interwoven almost impenetrably with climb- 

 ing plants, and where, deeply embayed in the moun- 

 tains, there occur open swampy spots covered with 

 bulrushes. It feeds on insects and seeds. 



The islands of New Zealand, situated to the east 

 of Australia, are still farther removed than that con- 

 tinent from the groups of islands in the Indian Ocean ; 

 but, in spite of their distance, it is in these latter that 

 we find the nearest analogue to the singular wingless 

 birds just described. The Dodo, which had been 

 brought to England and preserved in museums more 

 than two centuries ago, and figures of which have 

 been given, appears to have inhabited the Mauritius 

 and the island of Bourbon at no distant period, al- 

 though for some centuries it has not been seen in a 

 living state. Like the extinct wingless birds of New 

 Zealand, it was nearly allied to the cassowary, also 

 an inhabitant of the Mauritius, but it was more mas- 

 sive, and of more clumsy proportions. 



The study of the tertiary geology of Asia, Aus- 

 tralia, and the islands of the Pacific and Indian 

 Oceans, assisted by broad general views of the phy- 

 sical geography of those countries, seems to point to 

 them as among the chief districts which have un- 

 dergone changes during the latest geological period ; 

 and there is every reason to conclude that they are 

 still being greatly modified by undulatory movements 

 on a grand scale, constantly going on over a large 

 part of the earth's surface. At the commencement 



