G. M. Taomson.—On the Origin of the New Zealand Flora. 489 
tribution of the flora is not critically gone into, certain remarkable facts of 
the distribution of genera such as Eucalyptus, Stilbocarpa, Metrosideros and 
others, are brought forward by way of corroboration. 
Some four years after the publication of Professor Hutton’s paper, Mr. 
A. R. Wallace’s great work on the « Geographical Distribution of Animals ”’ 
came out, in which due consideration is given to the question of the origin 
of the New Zealand fauna, and to the discussion of Professor Hutton’s views. 
Mr. Wallace in this work does not agree with the idea that there was a 
former great antarctic land connection, but believes that there was a great 
southward extension of land, perhaps considerably beyond the Macquaries, 
and that this being within the range of floating ice during the colder epochs, 
and within easy reach of the antarctic continent during the warm periods, 
there arose “ that interchange of genera and species with South America, 
which forms one of the characteristic features of the natural history of New 
Zealand.” Professor Hutton’s theory is primarily based on the distribution 
of the struthious birds, but Mr. Wallace is of opinion that the ancestral 
struthious type probably once spread over the larger portion of the globe, 
and that as higher forms, particularly of the Carnivora, became developed, it 
Was exterminated everywhere except in those regions where it was free from 
their attacks, and that in these regions it developed into special forms 
adapted to surrounding conditions. This conclusion is supported and 
tendered almost certain by the discovery of remains of this order in Europe 
in eocene deposits, and by the occurrence of an ostrich among the fossils of 
the Siwalik Hills. 
While considering that no other form of animal inhabiting New Zealand 
Tequires a land connection with distant countries to account for its presence, 
Mr. Wallace concludes, in accordance with principles well established in an 
arlier part of his work, that the existence is demonstrated of an extensive 
tract of land in the vicinity of Australia, Polynesia, and the Antarctic 
Continent, without having been actually connected with any of these 
Countries, since the period when mammalia had peopled all the great 
continents, 
____ Last year the issue of Mr. Wallace’s most interesting work on ‘ Island 
Mh,” added ancther contribution to our knowledge of the question under 
, and the three chapters devoted to New Zealand put the problems 
Tery clearly before us. A very important factor, and one which had not 
