G2 DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. [part i. 



Mr. Sclater in his Lectures on Geographical Distribution at the 

 Zoological Gardens in May 1874), because it is absolutely with- 

 out indigenous mammalia and very poor in all forms of life, 

 and therefore by no means prominent or important enough to 

 form a primary region of the earth. 



It may be as well here to notice what appears to be a serious 

 objection to making New Zealand, or any similar isolated 

 district, one of the great zoological regions, comparable to South 

 America, Australia, or Ethiopia ; which is, that its claim to that 

 distinction rests on grounds which are liable to fail. It is 

 because New Zealand, in addition to its negative merits, possesses 

 three families of birds (Apterygidse living, Iunornithidee and 

 Palapterygidee extinct), and a peculiar lizard-like reptile, 

 Hatteria, which has to be classed in a distinct order, Ehyncho- 

 cephalina, that the rank of a Region is claimed for it. But 

 supposing, what is not at all improbable, that other Rhyncho- 

 cephalina should be discovered in the interior of Australia or 

 in New Guinea, and that Apterygidse or Palapterygidee should 

 be found to have inhabited Australia in Post-Pliocene times, 

 (as Dinornithidse have already been proved to have done) the 

 claims of New Zealand would entirely fail, and it would be 

 universally acknowledged to be a part of the great Australian 

 region. No such reversal can take place in the case of the 

 other regions ; because they rest, not upon one or two, but upon a 

 large number of peculiarities, of such a nature that there is no 

 room upon the globe for discoveries that can seriously modify 

 them. Even if one or two peculiar types, like Apterygidse or 

 Hatteria, should permanently remain characteristic of New Zea- 

 land alone, we can account for these by the extreme isolation of 

 the country, and the absence of enemies, which have enabled 

 these defenceless birds and reptiles to continue their existence ; 

 just as the isolation and protection of the caverns of Carniola 

 have enabled the Proteus to survive in Europe. But supposing 

 that the Proteus was the sole representative of an order of 

 Batrachia, and that two or three other equally curious and 

 isolated forms occurred with it, no one would propose that these 

 caverns or the district containing them, should form one of the 



