540 Proceedings. 
recorded, would be valuable, by remaining unrecorded are lost to science. This 
matter much to be regretted, more especially when we consider the remarkable pak 
which New Zealand occupies as a field for scientific enquir 
As you are doubtless pies the soundings taken i the ‘‘ Challenger” between 
Australia and New Zealand during the late scientific voyage of that vessel, have shown 
us that there is indeed bein iio two countries a very great gulf; for although it 
appears that for some 250 miles to the westward of New Zealand the depth of the sea 
increases slowly and is comparatively small, it also appears that, beyond that distance, 
he depth increases with great rapidity, ultimately reaching 2,600 fathoms, or sufficient 
to submerge the highest points of the Southern Alps. It is in no degree surprising, 
therefore, that little analogy has been found to exist between the natural productions of 
these two countries, for it has been found, for example, in the case of the Indo- and 
Austro-Malayan divisions of the Malay Archipelago, that a comparatively small expanse of 
deep water has been sufficient to account for immense diversities in natural productions, 
even between places which correspond in their main physical and climatal conditions. 
It is, moreover, well ascertained that the present distribution of life over the surface of 
the globe is the result of the latest changes which have taken place upon that surface, and 
it is therefore b aded clear that, if New Zealand had ever been connected by land 
with the Australian continent, it must have retained some of the peculiar types of life 
which ; RE that country. Singularly enough, the analogies of our fauna and flora 
are far more with those of South America and the southern parts of Africa than with 
those of Australia, indicating, indeed, a former land connection between these several 
places, notwithstanding the enormous expanse of sea by which they are now separated. 
Imay here mention one very curious instance of this analogy. Amongst the more 
remarkable inseets of New Zealand is the Peripatus, a creature only found in decaying 
wood, upon which it probably feeds, and which resembles an ordinary caterpillar in its 
appearance. But this insect never passes to the pupa or imago stages, being oviparous 
in the larval condition, and is absolutely incapable of passing alive over even the smallest 
space of salt-water. Now the same insect is found in Chili and at the Cape of Good 
Hope, and in both cases under precisely the same conditions as in New Zealand. But 
no such insect is found in any part of Australia or Tasmania. It will be remembered, 
moreover, that the vegetation of the south-western coasts of South America resembles, 
in a remarkable degree, that of the western coasts of the South Island, so much so, 
indeed, that Mr. Darwin's vivid and interesting description of the former might almost 
be applied verbatim to the latter district. The same differences exist between the 
natural productions of Australia on the one hand, and of the islands immediately to the 
northward of New Zealand (such as Norfolk Island and New Caledonia) on the other, 
whilst considerable analogy exists between those of our islands and of the islands to the 
northward. 
But a careful consideration of our own fauna and flora leads to the further conclu- 
sion that New Zealand has occupied an isolated position, as a zoological and botanical 
province, for a vast period of time, and the circumstance that, until quite recently, it 
was unvisited by civilized man, and was therefore saved from a class of interferences 
calculated to exercise a profound modifying influence upon its natural productions, 
invests those productions with the very greatest interest in a scientific point of view. It 
les our duty, under such circumstances, to exercise the utmost diligence in observa- 
tion and in the collection «f facts to be afterwards used in our attempts to solve the 
|. problems which the our fauna and flora offer for solution. 
