Hutron.—On the Geographical Relations of the N.Z. Fauna. 229 
Two species of seal frequent our shores ; the sea leopard (Stenorhynchus 
leptonyx) which is also found on ice floes in the Antarctic seas, and occasionally 
extends to Australia, and the fur seal (Arctocephalus cinereus), which is 
supposed to occur also on the southern coasts of Australia, and is closely 
related to, if not identical with, a species found at the Falkland Islands, Cape 
Horn, South Shetland, and South Georgia. In the Otago Museum there is 
also a skull that appears to belong to the sea elephant (Morunga proboscidea). 
Mr. Purdie informed me that it was picked up a long way inland. 
Of the Cetacea some twelve or thirteen species are known, belonging to the 
six different families into which the marine members of this order have been 
divided, and it is remarkable that two thirds of them are endemic, that is not 
found anywhere else. Our two or three species of whale-bone whale have, 
up to the present, been found nowhere else. The sperm whale of our 
northern coasts is probably the same species as that found in Australia and 
the South Pacific (Catodon australis). It is certainly distinct from the 
northern sperm whale (C. macrocephalus) as the lower jaw is much narrower.* 
Our ziphoid whales, of which we have three or four species, are all 
endemic, and two of them (Berardius arnuxii and Mesoplodon hectori) belong 
to genera not found elsewhere. None, however, of our Delphiniide are 
confined to New Zealand. Delphinus nove-zealandie inhabits the antarctic 
seas, and perhaps Tasmania ; Lagenorhynchus clanculus is found throughout 
the Pacific Ocean, but not in Australia, and Orca capensis, a lower jaw of 
which is in the Auckland Museum, ranges from the Cape of Good Hope 
through the Southern Ocean to Chili, and is also found in the North Pacific 
and Tasmania. The black-fish (Globiocephalus macrorhynchus) is found in the 
South Pacific and Japan, but not in Australia. Our Cetacea therefore, 
contrary to what might have been expected, show a nearer relation to the 
Pacific and Antarctic Oceans than they do to Australia, and it is remarkable 
that no species of porpoise has as yet been described as found in New Zealand, 
although two inhabit Tasmania. 
The absence of terrestrial Mammalia is one of the chief points of interest in 
New Zealand zoology, as it proves that there has been no land communica- 
tion between this country and Australia since the latter was inhabited by 
Marsupials, for I consider that the so-called Maori rat and native dog were 
both introduced by human agency.T 
* Capt. Cook remarks in his first voyage that rats were ‘‘so scarce that many of us 
never saw them.” (Hawkesworth’s “ Coll. of Voy.,” T p. 34.) He makes no mention 
of them ever being used for food, and I t remains of rats having been 
as yet found in Maori cooking p 
+ A lower jaw of the New Zealand sperm whale in the Auckland Museum is 17 ft. 
7 in. in length, and only 2 ft. 2 in. in width at the condyles ; there are 23 teeth on each 
side, 4 of which are rudimentary only ; the length of the largest tooth is 7'4 in. 
