Relations of the New-Zealand Fauna. 101 



Australia was submerged, and the southern portions of Aus- 

 tralia and Tasmania formed one large island ; while New 

 Guinea, including the Solomon Islands and New Hebrides on 

 the south and the Molucca Islands on the north, formed an- 

 other large island, divided from the New-Zealand island or 

 continent by the straits between New Caledonia and the 

 New Hebrides. 



This was the time of the migration from China southwards ; 

 and it is worthy of notice that at the same time a large ocean 

 existed from Southern Europe to China, in which the nummu- 

 litic limestone was being deposited. Would it be too bold to 

 speculate that it was along the shores of this ocean that those 

 fish, crustaceans, and shells migrated which are now found in 

 the North Atlantic or Mediterranean on the one hand, and in 

 China or Japan on the other, but not on the southern shores 

 of Asia, and that the anomalous distribution of Em-opean 

 forms of fish, shells, &c. in New Zealand may be traced to the 

 same route? This same period of sea communication between 

 Europe and Jaj^an will also probably have been the time of 

 the land connexion that once existed between India, Madagas- 

 car, and Africa (the Lemuria of Dr. Sclater), as proved by the 

 recent freshwater fish and birds, as well as by the Miocene 

 mammalia*; and to this period we may also refer the origin 

 of the curious affinity between some of the birds of Celebes and 

 Africa. The long insular period during the Upper Eocene 

 and Miocene times will therefore be the period of specific 

 change in the moas, while the Older Pliocene upheaval will be 

 the time of the mingling of the various species in New Zealand 

 and the peopling of the Chatham and Auckland Islands. The 

 Newer Pliocene was the time when the two islands of New 

 Zealand were divided, and also the period when the Chatham 

 and Auckland Islands were separated from them ; but the 

 latter occurrence probably preceded the former by a long 

 interval. 



Such appears to me to be the hypothesis most capable of 

 accounting for the present fauna of New Zealand. 



The objection, however, may be fairly raised that, if it is 

 true, evidence of its truth ought to be also found in the flora 

 of the country, which is not the case. I fully acknowledge 

 the force of this argument, but think that some slight evidence 

 can be found in the phsenogamic flora. The distribution of 



* Professor Huxley thinks (Quart. Joum. Geol. Soc. 1870, Ann. Ad- 

 dress, p. 56) that the land communication between India and South 

 Africa was caused by the upheaval of the nummulitic sea ; but it seems 

 to me more probable that the land communication was by the shores of 

 that sea. 



