732 rtEPOUT — 1887. 



If that be the case I am sure you will join with me iu thinking' that these insiiffi- 

 cientlj'-knowu parts of the world should be subjected to a thorough biological 

 exploration. For many years past I have been accustomed to hear an adage that 

 ' Property has its duties as well as its rights.' If I am strongly in favour of the 

 rights of property, I am no less prepared to exact from it its duties. Various 

 events have given to this nation rights of property in many parts of the globe. I 

 think we ought to justify those rights, and there is no better way of doing this 

 than by performing the corresponding duties. It is incontestable that among the 

 dependencies of the British Crown there are innumerable places — islands, large and 

 small, territories the limits of which no geographer or diplomatist can define, and 

 so forth — of which the fiiuna and flora have never been scientifically investigated. 

 It is right, of course, that I should recognise the successful efforts made in many- 

 instances by the directorate of the Royal Gardens at Kew, and to a less extent by 

 private persons. But why should not a properly organised biological investigation 

 of all the portions of the empire be made V You will, I think, all agree that it is 

 our duty to carry out investigations of this kind. Whether they would be better 

 performed under the superintendence of Her Majesty's Government or not is a 

 point on which I reserve my opinion, only mentioning that the success which has 

 attended those instituted by the botanical authorities at Kew leads me to suppose 

 that an extension of the method there followed might produce results as satisfac- 

 tory ; but, if this be the course adopted, I must point out that the organisation of 

 a corresponding zoological and geological directorate will be needed. This matter 

 I merelj' throw out for your consideration ; but I would add that if anything is to 

 be done no time is to be lost. 



"When on a former occasion (at Glasgow in 1876) I had the honour of address- 

 ing a Department of this Section, I pointed out the enormous changes that were 

 swiftly and inevitably coming upon tbe fauna of many of our colonies. The 

 fears I then expressed have been fully realised. I am told by Sir Walter Buller 

 that in New Zealand one may now live for weeks and months without seeing 

 a single example of its indigenous birds, all of which, in the more settled districts, 

 have been supplanted by the aliens that have been imported ; while further inland 

 these last are daily extending their range at the cost of the endemic forms. A 

 letter I have lately received from Sir .Tames Hector wholly confirms this statement, 

 and I would ask you to bear in mind that these indigenous species are, with scarcely 

 an exception, peculiar to that country, and, from ever}' .scientific point of view, of 

 the most instructive character. They supply a link with the past that once lost 

 can never be recovered. It is therefore incumbent upon us to know all we can 

 about them before they vanish. I have particularly instanced birds because I 

 happen to have studied them most ; but pray do not imagine that the same process 

 of extirpation is not extending to all other classes of animals, or that I take less 

 interest in their fate. The forms that we are allowing to be killed off, being almost 

 without exception ancient forms, are ju.'^t those that will teach us more of the way 

 in which hfe has spread over the globe than any other recent forms, and for the 

 sake of posterity, as well as to escape its reproach, we ought to learn all we can 

 about them before they go hence and are no more seen. 



I have just now applied to these expiring forms of New Zealand the epithet 

 ancient, and in comiexion therewith I would, by way of conclusion, offer a few 

 remarks on the aspect which the subject of Geographical Distribution presents to 

 me. Some of us zoologists — I am conscious of having myself been guilty of what 

 I am about to condemn — have been apt to speak of Zoological Ifegions as if they 

 were, and always had been, fixed areas. I am persuaded that if we do this we fall 

 into an error as grievous as that of our predecessors, who venerated the fixity of 

 Species. One of the best tests of a biologist is his being able to talk or write of 

 ' Species ' without believing that the term is more than a convenient counter for 

 the exchange of ideas. In the same way I hold that a good biologist should talk 

 or write of ' Zoological Regions.' The expression no doubt arose out of the belief, 

 now scouted by all, in Centres of Creation ; and, as sometimes used, the vice of its 

 birth still clings to it. To my mind the true meaning of the phrase ' Zoological 

 Region ' is that of an area inhabited by a fauna which is, so to speak, a ' function ' 



