s 
178 Transactions.—Zoology. 
studied, the more evident it becomes that it is not what it was once thought 
to be, but that it is determined by various causes, the most potent of which 
is undoubtedly need of protection. 
It may be as well to bear in mind that, although these few notes have 
the pretentious title “in New Zealand," they only refer to my own district. 
Arr. XIV.—Remarks upon the Distribution within the New Zealand Z oological 
Sub-region of the Birds of the Orders Accipitres, Passeres, Scansores, 
Columbe, Galline, Struthiones, and Gralle. By W. T. L. TRAVERS, 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 21st October, 1882.] 
A very cursory examination of the avi-fauna of New Zealand is sufficient to 
show that it presents some of the features especially characteristic of all forms 
of life in oceanic islands, namely,—that an order is often represented by one 
or two families only ;—that the number of families is large in proportion to 
the number of forms ;—and that, in the great majority of cases, the genus is 
represented by one or, at most, two species. 
This feature is naturally most observable in the cases of the land birds 
and waders, to which alone I purpose calling attention in this paper. 
In preparing the annexed tables (compiled from Dr. Buller’s recently- 
published handbook, with certain corrections which I have found it neces- 
sary to make) I have adopted the limits assigned by Mr. Wallace, in his 
work on the geographical distribution of animals, to what he terms the New 
Zealand zoological sub-region, but I purpose to deal very shortly with the 
case of its more remote outlying districts, inasmuch as the few birds 
common to them and to the main islands are all of sufficiently powerful 
flight to account for their occurrence at points far apart. 
Since the publication of Mr. Wallace’s work, the investigations of the 
“Challenger” scientific expedition have shown that a very great gulf lies 
between New Zealand and Australia, a gulf so great, indeed, as to lead irre- 
sistibly to the conclusion, that whatever may have been the former exten- 
sion to the eastward of the lands of which the main islands of New Zealand 
and the Chatham and Auckland groups are the remnants, no land connec- 
tion has existed between New Zealand and the Australasian Continent 
within, at all events, the Tertiary period. Strange, therefore, as it may 
appear, we can only account for the presence in New Zealand of existing 
Australian birds by assuming that they must have winged their way hither 
across the intervening 1,200 miles of ocean. This feat is quite within the 
powers of flight of the majority of the birds which are common to both 
