450 ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. [part hi. 



New Zealand, there would have been formed an island-con- 

 tinent not much inferior in extent to Australia itself. 



New Zealand is wholly situated in the warmer portion of 

 the Temperate zone, and enjoys an exceptionally mild and 

 equable climate. It has abundant moisture, and thus comes 

 within the limits of the South-Temperate forest zone ; and this 

 leads to its productions often resembling those of the tropical, 

 but moist and wooded, islands of the Pacific, rather than those 

 of the temperate, but arid and scantily wooded plains of Aus- 

 tralia. The two islands of New Zealand are about the same 

 extent (approximately) as the British Isles, but the difference in 

 the general features of their natural history is very great. There 

 are, in the former, no mammalia, less than half as many birds, 

 very few reptiles and fresh-water fishes, and an excessive and 

 most unintelligible poverty of insects; yet, considering the 

 situation of the islands and their evidently long-continued 

 isolation, the wonder rather is that their fauna is so varied 

 and interesting as it is found to be. Our knowledge of this 

 fauna, though no doubt far from complete, is sufficiently 

 ample ; and it will be well to give a pretty full account of 

 it, in order to see what conclusions may be drawn as to its 

 origin. 



Mammalia. — The only mammals positively known as indi- 

 genous to New Zealand are two bats, both peculiar to it, — Scoto- 

 philia tuberculatum and Mystacina tubcrculata. The former is 

 allied to Australian forms ; the latter is more interesting, as 

 being a peculiar genus of the family Noctilionidae, which does 

 not exist in Australia ; and in having decided resemblances to 

 the Phyllostomidae of South America, so that it may almost be 

 considered to be a connecting link between the two families. A 

 forest rat is said to have once abounded on the islands, and to 

 have been used for food by the natives ; but there is much doubt 

 as to what it really was, and whether it was not an introduced 

 species. The seals are wide-spread antarctic forms which have 

 no geographical significance. 



Birds. — About 145 species of birds are natives of New Zealand, 

 of which 88 are waders or aquatics, leaving 57 land-birds belong- 



