Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society. 427 



In favour of a Southern connection of Antarctic Lands. — 

 A. E. Wallace, in "Island Life," says : — " Whenever we find a con- 

 siderable number of the Mammals [or flightless birds] of two 

 countries that exhibit distinct marks of relationship, we may be 

 sure that an actual land-connection, or a close approach to one, has 

 at one time existed." 



Charles Darwin ("Origin of Species," vol. ii, 1888, p. 190), 

 says : — " New Zealand is plainly related to South America, although 

 the next nearest continent is so enormously remote that the fact 

 becomes an anomaly. This difficulty disappears in the view that 

 New Zealand, South America, and the other Southern lands have 

 been stocked in part from the Antarctic Islands, when they were 

 clothed with vegetation during a warmer Tertiary period, before 

 the commencement of the last Glacial epoch." 



Dr. W. T. Blanford, F.E.S. (Pres. Geol. Soc, 1890), wrote in his 

 address : — " The biological evidence of a former land connection 

 between South America and Africa is very strong, and if the 

 difficulty about the depth of the intervening ocean is overcome, 

 there is no improbability in the suggestion that, at some period of 

 geological history, an important continent having connections with 

 South America, South Africa, and New Zealand, may have occupied 

 the Antarctic Area." 



Professor Huxley, " On the Distribution of Gallinaceous Birds," 

 P.Z.S., 1868, says : — " Of the two sections (the Alectropodes and 

 the Peristeropodes) , the former are restricted to the Northern, and 

 the latter to the Southern Hemisphere." He goes on to compare 

 the Curassows of South America with the Megapodes or Mound- 

 builders of Australia ; and he considers that thej^ are sprung from 

 one stock ; and that the common ancestors must have developed on 

 some large area in the Southern Hemisphere, from which there was 

 access both to South America and Australia. 



It is probable that a very large extent of ancient land around the 

 present Antarctic continent has been lost to us by submergence, and 

 that the rather numerous small islands in the surrounding ocean are 

 but the buoys or landmarks indicating large areas of more or less 

 continuous land, which has since disappeared. This is supported by 

 the many signs of volcanic activity in recent times which these 

 islands display. Doubtless land connections stretched from South 

 America to the South Shetlands, the South Orkneys, South Georgia, 

 and to Kerguelen Island. 



Peculiarities of Southern Land-Faunas. — Let us look for 

 a moment at the peculiarities of the Southern land-faunas : — 



In no other part of the world do we find such a remavkable 

 assemblage of struthious birds, both of living and extinct forms, 

 distributed over the continents and islands which encircle the 

 Antarctic. In South America we have the BJiea Americana. In 

 Africa the Ostrich Struthio cameliis. In Mauritius we have numerous 

 (8) species of ^pyornis (an extinct wingless bird as large as the 

 Dinornis of New Zealand), remarkable also from the great size of its 

 eggs. In Mauritius we find the extinct Woodhen Aphanapteryx. 



