178 Transactions. — Zoology. 



studied, the more evident it becomes that it is uot 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. 



Art. XIV. — Remarks upon the Distribution within the Neiv Zealand Zoological 

 Sub-region of the Birds of the Orders Accipitres, Passeres, Scansores, 

 Columba?, Gallinse, Struthiones, and G-ralhe. By W. T. L. Travers, 

 F.L.S. 



[Bead 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 



