Cof'KiniRN-HooD. — -Xctc Ze'alaml a I'dxt-fildrial Cfiilir of (Creation. 'IH 



landed iu excellent health and spirits on the deck of a vessel in the Pacific, 

 half that distance from the Australian coast. 



If such a fortunate chance occurred, which, however, is scarce possible, 

 and gave a somewhat faher start to the higher forms of life in New Zealand, 

 their offspring have devoured the race of theh ancestors, as until very 

 recently frogs were unknown tliere ; now introduced from Australia in some 

 localities they croak from every pond their appreciation of its swamps, safe 

 from destroying snakes. Touching these same frogs, it appears to have 

 been a want of judgment in their various descendants, a blunder justifying 

 the term of " the aimless action of natural selection," not to have gone on 

 improving and perfecting the attributes possessed by them. None of their 

 progeny being able to jump about and avoid obstacles iu their j)ath after 

 the connection between the brain and limbs has been severed, one would 

 imagine that the course of progressive development should have improved-y 

 instead of arresting the advantageous capacity enjoyed by some of their 

 analogues and remote progenitors of producing new limbs, and even 

 heads, when accident removes the original ones. 



On the whole most jpersons will prefer to consider the moas the long 

 descended aboriginal inhabitants of this laud where they have reigned lords 

 amongst wingless birds from the far distant era when it formed a portion of 

 a great continent, which on the score of antiquity has equal right to be 

 delineated on the map of the old world as Lemuria. 



All that is now land has been sea, and the seas land, not once, but pro- 

 bably over, and over, and over again, and as a continuity of the various 

 dry portions of the globe has at one time or another existed (excepting, of 

 course, new lands like the Gallapagos and other volcano-born isles), the 

 ancient connection explains how it came to pass that wingless birds 

 descended from the same original created type are found in South America, 

 in Africa, and in all these islands of the sea. 



It seems easier to believe in the tertiary men, who might if they 

 desired, have gone to war mounted on Anchitheriums (for we may be per- 

 mitted to take for granted that there may have been a family of these 

 creativres large enough to carry their short-legged, ape-like riders), who 

 were there to witness, we are told, the coming uj)on the stage of the 

 elephantine races, and all the many quaint-looking giant creatures, long 

 passed away, than to imagine that their descendants could have been pre- 

 sent at the birth of the first taniwha-descended, post-glacial moa. 



Certainly the supporters of this idea may suggest that some of the 

 tertiary men devoted themselves during the long pliocene ages (which, when 

 it suits his argument, are reduced to moderate periods by Professor Haeckel), 

 to the breeding of bu'ds without wings, and achieved m the pursuit success 



