On the Oeograpliical Relations of the Xeiv- Zealand Fauna. 25 



\rr. — The Geographical Relations of the New-Zealand Fauna. 

 By Captain F. W. Hutton, C.M.Z.S.* 



I KNOW of no part of the world that presents such a promising 

 field to the student of nature as New Zealand. Although 

 small in size, it contains a fauna and flora so peculiar that 

 several naturalists consider it a separate biological province 

 apart from the rest of the world. Isolated from anj large con- 

 tinental area longer probablj than any other portion of the 

 earth, it contains the remnant of the population of a continent 

 that existed before the Mammalia had overspread the world ; 

 and to that has at various times been added, principally from 

 Australia, a colonist population which culminated not many 

 hundreds of years ago in the advent of man. New Zealand, 

 therefore, presents us with what I may call the elements of a 

 continental fauna, or a continental faima in its simplest state, 

 and consequently in that state which is most advantageous for 

 studying the mutual relations of the animals composing it. 



Both Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace call New Zealand an 

 " oceanic island " from a zoological point of view, owing to 

 the absence of terrestrial mammals and the meagreness of its 

 fauna and flora ; that is to say, they consider it an island 

 that has never fonned part of a continental area since its last 

 emergence from the sea. But I think that the Struthious birds 

 have certainly as much weight in determining this point as 

 ten-estrial mammals, for they have no superior means of dis- 

 persion ; and Xew Zealand also possesses a frog, which is one 

 of the great characteristics of a continental fauna. From a 

 geological point of view, I do not see how any land, except 

 volcanic and coral islands, could have originated except as part 

 of a large continental upheaval. I think, therefore, that the 

 New-Zealand fauna may be correctly called the remnants of a 

 continental fauna, and that a close study of it will throw great 

 light on many of the most important, but at the same time 

 most obscure, problems in zoology. It will, however, be long 

 before this can be accomplished. The describing and naming 

 of the different animals, which is the foundation upon which 

 all other researches must rest, is as yet far from being com- 

 pleted ; the determination of what species are the original in- 

 habitants, or the descendants of the original inhabitants, of the 

 former continent has hardly been attempted ; but all this must 

 be settled before any sound deductions can be drawn as to the 

 reasons of extinction, variation, or permanency of type of the 

 animals. 



* Communicated by the Author, from the 'Transactions of the New 

 Zealand Institute/ vol. v. 1872. 



