Henry O. Forbes—Chatham Isles and the Antarctic Lands. 229 
the rails. Professor Newton also and his brother, Sir Hdward, 
consider it ‘impossible on any other reasonable supposition than 
that of a common ancestry to account for the distribution of the 
animal forms that they present. These authors are compelled to 
the belief that there was once a time when Rodriguez, Mauritius, 
Bourbon, Madagascar, and the Seychelles were connected by dry 
land which we may name Mascarenia, and that that time is suffi- 
ciently remote to have permitted the descendants of the original 
inhabitants of this now shbmerged continent to become modified 
into the many representative forms which are now known. .... 
That the solitaire of Rodriguez and the dodo of Mauritius, much as 
they eventually came to differ, sprang from one and the same stock, 
seems a deduction so obvious that the authors can no more conceive 
anyone fully acquainted with the facts of the case-hesitating about 
its adoption’ (‘ Voyage of Francois Leguat,’ vol. ii. p. 356 —Hakluyt 
Society, 1891). 
On comparing the bones of the Aphanapteryx brought from the 
Chatham Islands with those of the Mauritius bird, I have found 
thein to be so closely related as to be almost inseparable. Indeed, 
these bones from Wharekauri and Mauritius, over i20° of longitude 
apart, are more nearly related to each other than the Erythromachus 
of Rodriguez (an island of its own archipelago, only 95 miles 
distant) is with the Aphanapteryx of Mauritius. 
The question arises how came they to inhabit such widely 
separated regions? There is only one deduction: the members of 
the genus must have reached their respective homes by some con- 
tinuous land connection between the two places. In order, however, 
to make as clear as possible the route by which Mr. Forbes believed 
these descendants of a common ancestor reached habitats so far 
apart, he discussed the distribution of life in other regions of the 
hemisphere. 
_In the southern regions of the great continents, in the southern 
part of South America, in South Africa, in Australia, and in New 
Zealand, we have forms, either still living or now extinct, that are 
so closely related as to indicate that they have sprung from a 
common ancestor. In New Zealand there occur the remains of the 
moa, which stood over 10 feet in height, a member of the ancient 
family of the ostriches. It lived down to comparatively recent 
times and goes back to about the newer Pliocene or Pleistocene age. 
We have also here a somewhat aberrant form of the same family, 
the kiwi, or apteryx, still living. In Australia there existed a now 
extinet genus of the same family, the Dromornis; and two genera 
alive, the emu and the cassowary—the latter extending into New 
Guinea and some of the surrounding islands. In Madagascar we 
find in a fossil state the bones of a large species of the same group, 
the dipyornis; I have lately examined specimens of its bones 
recently received in the British Museum, whose similarity to those 
of the moa is so great that if they had been discovered in New 
Zealand they would, I believe, undoubtedly have been referred to a 
species of moa. In Africa we have the aberrant ostrich. While in 
