252 Transactions.— Zoology. 
by a chain of islands. This second continent received from the north those 
forms already enumerated together probably with Spheneeacus, the rails, and 
the starlings ; at the same time it received from Australia the honey-eaters, 
Certhiparus, Gerygone, Petroica, Rhipidura and others, and from that time to 
the present has been occasionally receiving additional birds. It will also be 
- noticed that very few of the birds of the middle paleotropical region came 
down this line of communication, no pheasants, woodpeckers, grackles nor 
finches, while Australia in its wood-swallows (Artamus), pittas, quails, and 
numerous finches, shows now some affinity to this region, This can be best 
explained by supposing that the New Zealand line of communication was 
broken up before these birds came into existence, and that further changes 
have since taken place in the lines of easiest communication ; indeed, the fact 
of such forms as the elephant, tiger, and bear being found in Sumatra and 
. Borneo ; Marsupials in Celebes, the Moluccas, Solomon Islands, and New 
Hebrides; and the presence of an emu in New Guinea, and a cassowary in 
Australia, prove that changes in the distribution of land have since taken 
place, but it is foreign to the object of this paper to speculate on these here. 
This second continent was also inhabited by most of the orders of insects, 
although perhaps not in great abundance, but Heteroptera and the butterfly 
section of the Lepidoptera were absent, 
3, Subsidence again followed, and New Zealand was reduced for a long 
time to a number of islands, upon many of which the moa lived, This was 
followed by— 
£. Elevation ; these islands were connected and a large island existed 
disconnected from Polynesia. This was once more followed by— 
5. Subsidence, and the geography of this part of the world assumed 
somewhat of its present form, 
GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 
Such are, I think, the deductions that may be fairly drawn from a study 
of our fauna, It remains now to examine the geological and paleontological 
evidence and see whether it agrees with that derived from zoology, and then 
try to fix with as much accuracy as possible the dates of the principal 
movements of the earth’s surface which have gradually led to the present 
state of the New Zealand fauna, : 
Hardly anything is yet known of the palæozoic rocks of New Zealand. 
The earliest fossil shells described are almost identical with those living in 
- Europe during the triassic period, but the only known plant is Dammara 
australis (Hochstetter’s “ New Zealand,” p- 57), a genus still living in New 
Zealand, but also found in Australia, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Fiji, 
